Tony Hall: the BBC is like James Bond

As staff at the BBC face cuts and budget tightening following the Government’s plans to reform the Corporation, their director-general Tony Hall has offered his own defence of the licence fee.

Writing the diary in this week’s Spectator, he mentions that Tracey Ullman was recently transformed into Dame Judi Dench as ‘M’ in the James Bond films. Hall goes on to suggest that the BBC has some parallels to Bond with both in possession of a ‘very special licence’:

‘When Tracey spent the day as Dame Judi Dench on location last week, so talented are the make-up and prosthetics team that passing members of the public were fooled into thinking she was miraculously back from the dead as ‘M’ in the new Bond film. Of course Bond is world-renowned as a quintessential British cultural icon; an underappreciated force for good with his very special licence. Sound familiar?’

Still, if it is the case, perhaps the BBC will consider going the same way as Bond by taking product placement deals from firms such as Carlsberg in order to cover their production costs.