Murdoch’s right: the BBC will destroy its news rivals

A Guardian survey published last Friday showed that eight out of ten members of the public backed the BBC against its detractors. The opinion poll was commissioned in response to a wide-ranging attack on the corporation by James Murdoch, son of Rupert and chief executive of News Corporation for Europe and Asia. In his MacTaggart Lecture at the Edinburgh television festival at the end of last month, he had accused the BBC of a ‘land grab’, adding: ‘The scale and scope of its current activities and future ambitions is chilling.’

Now, I hold no brief for Mr Murdoch. And he holds no brief for me, as he effectively fired me last month when he approved the closure of thelondonpaper, the free newspaper on which I have worked for the past three years or so. But as the arguments provoked by his lecture ricochet around the media world, I find it hard not to agree with him.