Slicing

The Libdems may not be inside Cockspur St, but, according to the Independent, they're not without influence. Don Foster says there's a way, with a tweak to the sixth of the BBC's public purposes, to use perhaps even more of the licence-fee to pay for super-fast broadband, and get rid of Labour's proposed 50p a month tax on phone lines.

The sixth purpose requires the BBC to help to "deliver to the public the benefit of emerging communications technologies and services and, in addition to take a leading role in the switchover to digital television". By extrapolation, you can get digital tv down fast broadband, and hey-presto, it's not top-slicing - it's part of the remit !

Meanwhile, in the quasi-civil service world of the BBC, strategists may be working on the tin ear of Mark Thompson about salaries. David Cameron says, in public service, the top pay should be no more than twenty times that of the lowest paid worker. The entry grade at the BBC is £14037. A £280k max at the BBC would take out the bulk of the top 100 salaries.