Who'll really put quality first ?

If "Putting Quality First" is a public consultation exercise by the BBC, there has to be some room for manouevre in it; some genuine options that licence payers can influence. But, in the end, the licence fee in 2013 will be set by politicians - and may be less than it is now, not just frozen as the document assumes.

Ed Vaizey, shadow culture minister, is reported to have described proposals to close 6Music and the Asian Network, and cut back the BBC website as "intelligent and sensible". However, in the past, his preferred headline-grabber has been to auction off Radio 1, which he believes would raise £100m - not an option put forward by the BBC. Meanwhile, a reminder that politics in this feverish time has an occasional pork-barrel feel - the top item in Mr Vaizey's blog, in an election run-up, is still his campaign to re-open Wantage Road Station.

A hurried public debate in the middle of a General Election campaign is not the way to reshape one of this country's most valuable and prized assets - and I don't mean a railway station.