Timing

Former Culture Secretary John Whittingdale has laid out a stark future for the BBC in the Borisograph. "BBC’s services such as News and Current Affairs, Radio and the World Service will always need to be publicly funded."   The rest, apparently, can take their chance in a world of subscription.

The only ray of sunshine from this cranking up of John's huge candle-power is that it's going to take time. He believes that when everyone gets their tv via the internet rather than from transmitters, you can 'turn off' non-payers and make money from the freed-up tv frequencies. Conservative policy is that every home and business should have fibre broadband by 2025, with the pledge of £5bn to spend on the hard bits. Fat chance.