Where's Willy ?

I leave my post for a second, and there's all sorts going on at the BBC over the public spending review. If The Guardian is right, it's pretty serious. The push to make Auntie cover the cost of free tv licences to the Over 75s would cut BBC annual income of currently £4,790m by 11.6%.  The counter offer - the BBC to absorb costs of World Service - represents an effective cut of 5.6%.   This pales, of course, into insignificance compared with Government departments facing cuts of 25-40%. 

The creation of the Journalism Division has made it something of a target - it's hard to work out the divisional spend from the Annual Report, but it has certainly edged ahead of Vision in total budget.  Absorbing the running costs of World Service in News on its own, however, would be a severe and potentially debilitating target. Losing the raison d'etre for the World Service would be worse. Where is William Hague ?