MY PROGRAMME FOR CUTTING THE BLOATED BEEB DOWN TO SIZE

IT NEVER fails to surprise me how some people who think they’re so clever can claim to be so naive when it suits them. I’m talking about BBC director-generals of both the past and present.

My gosh, words fail me. I saw former Beeb boss John Birt giving evidence to the culture select committee. Talk about flannelling! But this just represents what the BBC is. A bunch of people who really have no idea what they are doing and who consider that they are the crème de la crème of the media world.

Somebody surely needs to wake them up. But they just don’t take criticism very well, do they? The BBC has grown like Topsy into a state where it can’t actually be properly managed.

I don’t want to see the demise of all of the BBC, but a news channel, an education channel and maybe one that puts out programmes which the commercial sector could not afford would be enough. They don’t need anything else, yet they even have the audacity to talk about their commercial sector selling programmes abroad.

You and I as licence fee-payers have financed those. Doesn’t that make us shareholders? And shouldn’t we get a cut?