Rejoice! Channel 4 will not go private so the privates can keep coming

Happy new year! The Commons is back and January is dry. The Tories want us to do double maths; Labour might ban smoking. It’s as if the entire political establishment has conspired to ruin my life – well, me and the Duke of

Sussex. I could only watch five minutes of his historic interview. The moment the Ginger Bolter said he wants to “own my story”, I turned over to a double-bill of ’Allo ’Allo!.

I now wish I’d tried Channel 4, which former culture sec Nadine Dorries wanted to sell off but her replacement, Michelle Donelan, has decided to keep – a decision that wasn’t announced to the House but leaked to the media, with the crowning irony that MPS only found out about it from Channel 4 News.

Labour thus called an urgent question to congratulate Donelan and was backed by a chorus of MPS, from Left and Right, who evidently watch nothing else. With each soaring endorsement, one’s mind turned to the high-quality output that has put Channel 4 – and, thanks to Channel 4, Britain – on the map.

“It is a great British success story,” said Simon Jupp (Naked Attraction).

It is “innovative”, said Sir Peter Bottomley (Find It, Fix It, Flog It),

and “brings in audiences others don’t serve so well” (My Massive C--k).

C4 is a “much-loved public institution”, said John Nicholson (Embarrassing Bodies) and to privatise it, insisted Labour’s Lucy Powell (The Man With a Penis on his Arm), would be “cultural vandalism. Jamie Stone asked, who here could forget “the reading of the poem ‘Stop the Clocks’ in Four Weddings and a Funeral”, a film that “features Scotland” and is our Union, Mr Speaker, not a “diamond”?

I suppose we can infer from this tribute to the makers of Boobs and The Super Orgasm, that were C4 to be sold off, we could be at civil war within weeks. The thought of Frankie Boyle locked in hand-to-hand combat with Carol Vorderman breaks one’s heart.

Of course, cynics will say Four Weddings... was released 30 long years ago, and Tory Scott Benton even claimed C4 has “an unmistakable liberal, Left metropolitan bias ... so much so that it almost makes the BBC look impartial”. He sat down next to a laughing Priti Patel in what is fast becoming the naughty corner of the chamber, packed with Tories who would probably have skipped maths to smoke behind the bike sheds.

They think the U-turn makes the

Government look weak and the hippies at C4 look like winners, even though all they broadcast nowadays is property shows, US imports, communism and porn.

I’m afraid a section of the Tory party is, at heart, philistine.

What would I have seen on Sunday had I flipped over to Channel 4 rather than watch René attempt to steal the Fallen Madonna with ze Big Boobies? Seems I missed a documentary on Kim Kardashian, the reality TV star with a big bum. Thank heavens this jewel has been saved for the nation.