Warning shot

It may have a been a random question from the factory floor that raised the issue of scrapping tv licences, but the issue was clearly somewhere near the front of Boris Johnson's mind. Not a bumbling answer, but some moderately well-ordered sentences came out.

"At this stage we are not planning to get rid of all licence fees, though I am certainly looking at it. I’m under pressure not to extemporise policy on the hoof.

"You have to ask yourself whether that approach to funding a media company still makes sense in the long term given the way that other organisations manage to fund themselves.

"The system of funding out of what is a general tax bears reflection. How long can you justify a system whereby everybody who has a TV has to pay to fund a particular set of TV and radio channels ?"

BuzzFeed's Alex Wickham was prompt with what looks like a Cummings briefing....

Dominic Cummings and senior No10 aides have drawn up plans over the last few weeks re BBC licence fee

They are looking either abolishing it entirely or decriminalising non payment

Source says they want to relieve burden on justice system of chasing people who don’t pay

— Alex Wickham (@alexwickham) December 9, 2019

When Boris gets home to No 10, he presumably has a brief catch-up with his current partner, Carrie Symonds and her doggie-canvasser Dilyn. Carrie was at John Whittingdale's side when the Osborne/BBC Done-in-a-corner Charter was agreed in 2015.