Discovery channels

Bashing the BBC often becomes a popular blood sport in times of political instability, and especially if the left is weak and un-able to defend itself. You only have to think back to the period when Margaret Thatcher was leading the Tories and lambasting Auntie to recognise that there is some truth in this aphorism. It’s not surprising, then, that we’re going through another phase of repeated attacks on the BBC’s impartiality, the unfair advantage provided by the licence fee, its ‘dumbing down’ to satisfy a broad audience.

Those of us who rely on listening to the radio to keep us sane in a mad, mad world need to rally round and keep on insisting why we so love and admire the Corporation if we want it to survive as a publicly funded institution. Not specifically for its news — although we should never, ever take for granted the fact that the BBC always sets out to be impartial, and can usually, although not always, be trusted to be so.