My Lords, I declare an interest as a former BBC governor. I had not realised how popular this debate would be, so I ought to apologise to Back-Bench speakers. I can only offer them the advice of the late and dearly lamented Nicholas Parsons and remind them to speak without hesitation, repetition or deviation.
I left home this morning listening to the dulcet northern tones of my noble friend Lord Bragg, who was in mental combat with three professors on quantum mechanics. The podcast of that programme will be listened to by millions of people all over the world, and that will promote British culture and British values. It is another example of soft power, as it is commonly known.
It is also interesting—I had not realised that my timing was so good—that a new Culture Secretary, Oliver Dowden, has been appointed. I looked with interest at his old quotes. He said:
“The BBC needs to be closer to, and understand the perspectives of, the whole of the United Kingdom and avoid providing a narrow urban outlook.”
I suppose that is a matter of opinion. I have never seen the BBC as doing that, given the range of regional broadcasters that it has. He went on:
“By this, I don’t just mean getting authentic and diverse voices on and off the screen—although … this is important … But also making sure there is genuine diversity of thought and experience.”
He went on to suggest that some people think that Sky and CNN are better news providers and prefer them to the BBC. There are bound to be some people who think that; it is a question of taste. He does at least end on a positive note, which I welcome. He said that the BBC has to find its place in the age of streaming and subscription sites, such as YouTube and Netflix, but he also said that,
“the BBC is an institution to be cherished … We would be crazy to throw it away but it must reflect all of our nation, and all perspectives.”
I certainly agree with that, and I refer to our previous Culture Secretary, the noble Baroness, Lady Morgan, who said:
“We would be much less informed and inspired as a society if we didn’t have a healthy pluralistic and universally available PSB system.”
That puts it in some kind of perspective.
I shall cite one more quote. It is from a briefing I had from BECTU, a broadcast trade union, and addresses value for money for customers:
“The annual cost of the License Fee is £154.50 per household. This funds all BBC TV output, iPlayer, BBC News, BBC Weather, BBC Radio (as well as other public service broadcasters). It is a unique mix of entertainment, news and information. For comparison a standard Netflix subscription cost £108 per year and only includes access to their streaming service. A digital-only subscription to the Times costs £312 per year. It is impossible to argue that the License Fee does not represent value for money in the modern media market.”
My Lords, I thank the Labour Party for using one of its slots for this debate and the noble Lord, Lord Young, for the very constructive way in which he opened it. I am reminded of a phrase that has gone down the ages: “We are the masters now.” The noble Lord, Lord Hennessey, will be able to tell us whether Hartley Shawcross actually said that, but there has always been a kind of opprobrium of a new Government that comes in with a sense of triumphalism and score-settling. I must say, the way that this Government have launched themselves on to the BBC is very worrying indeed. It is worth remembering that the BBC is protected by the royal charter from the day-to-day vindictiveness and intimidation of a Government.
Looking for support in the battle ahead, I am reminded from past debates that the Conservatives have a proud record on public service broadcasting. A Conservative Government established the BBC as a public body, protected and underpinned by the royal charter. A Conservative Government introduced commercial television on a regional basis, giving it regional strengths, which ITV retains today—I still think of myself as coming from “Granada-land”—and the late Lord Whitelaw was the political inspiration behind Channel 4, with its reputation for risk and non-conformity. This record should not be cast aside lightly in abeyance to those who see the BBC as the mortal enemy. The licence fee is probably the least bad way of financing the BBC and should be protected from populist ways to weaken it. It should not be used as a bran tub from which Governments can pluck popular goodies at will.
What is now under way is a fight to preserve the unique benefits of a public service ecology, which was preserved and promoted by the noble Lord, Lord Young. It is a debate that should be conducted sensibly and with due confidence from the public that it is national, not political, ends that are being followed. Our debate would also be better informed if those national newspapers running stories hostile to the BBC or to other public service broadcasters were automatically to spell out for their readers the commercial benefits to their proprietors of any particular course of action.
My Lords, I welcome this timely debate and congratulate the Labour Party on securing it and the noble Lord, Lord Young, on opening it so comprehensively. It is also a great pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord McNally, whose contribution was typically passionate and informed.
I am privileged to chair your Lordships’ Communications and Digital Select Committee. We recently published a report on the future of PSBs; in the time available, I will highlight only a few of our conclusions. Last year, as chair of the committee, I attended the Royal Television Society Cambridge conference as a guest of ITV and attended a Hyde Park concert as an audience member and guest of the BBC. The noble Lord, Lord Young, is right to highlight the economic as well as the creative role of PSBs and the BBC in particular. Many noble Lords who are speaking today have made notable contributions to our nation’s creative life, and I look forward to hearing from them. I will dwell not on the huge cultural contributions of PSBs but on their critical and economic role.
Our creative industries are huge, growing and world-class. We have all seen the superlatives. They are central to our economy and will provide the jobs of the future. In a post-AI world, creativity in all its forms will drive future job growth and provide satisfying and fulfilling careers for future generations as other professions and skills decline in the age of automation. Right at the heart of our creative sector is the rapidly growing and changing UK film and TV production sector.
When we started taking evidence, I thought that we would produce a report with recommendations on how we might help PSBs simply to survive in this rapidly changing world, in which they would be bound to decline. However, witness after witness, from the SVODs investing so heavily in UK production to independent producers and non-PSB commercial broadcasters, highlighted that it was the mixed ecology that made the UK such an attractive place for them in which to invest and create jobs. So it seemed that the question was not what we could do to help PSBs to survive but how to help them to thrive and continue to play a critical role at the heart of our creative industries, nurturing talent, taking risks and reflecting Britain in all its diversity. To me, that says that these industries must be at the heart of our future industrial strategy and central to our economic policy. I hope that the Minister will tell us whether the Government take that view.
My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Young, has tabled an important and timely debate. I start with a quote from a recent Radio 4 interview with the media analyst Claire Enders, who said:
“The BBC … has a civic purpose. Netflix does not”.
This is the primary distinguishing characteristic of the BBC, implicit in its original mission statement. The BBC provides a public space for public debate through informing, through education, through the arts and entertainment. Other public broadcasters and the more commercial channels do some of this, but those who believe there should be a more level playing field misunderstand the nature of the relationship between the BBC and other services, including the video-on-demand services. As a purely non-commercial service, the BBC keeps the others honest and has done so for many decades, through being able to focus entirely on the notion of quality and now, globally, on areas other than world news. This is less a marketplace and more a richly productive ecosystem. The Government should not forget the considerable soft power that accrues from the BBC’s place in this ecosystem.
Mistakes are made. I point to a recent one: the Government have taken a leaf straight out of the Trump playbook in effectively no-platforming the public broadcasters, including the “Today” programme. They would rather continue to campaign to stay in power through social media, including Twitter, than debate the issues of the day through broadcasters. This is deeply insulting to the public. In my view, “Today” should have responded immediately by interviewing shadow Secretaries of State and effectively empty-chairing the relevant Ministers. The Government would have changed their tune fairly quickly, but this is a minor quibble in the scheme of things. “Today” will now have Times Radio on its tail, although I am sure that the BBC will rise to this challenge boldly.
1:02 pm
The Lord Bishop of Salisbury
My Lords, the timing of this debate could hardly be better. I also want to thank the noble Lord, Lord Young, for his introduction. The Media and Telecoms 2020 & Beyond conference and the Culture Secretary’s contribution to it inevitably inform a lot of what is to be said. I also wondered whether I need to declare an interest, having been the vicar of St Martin-in-the-Fields for 16 years, given that the first religious service ever broadcast came from there, by the BBC, in January 1924. The link continues. I never made much income from it, but it is a significant relationship with considerable affection for the BBC built into it.
The debate has focused on public service and the contribution of the BBC to the economy and creative culture of the country. Other noble Lords can speak much better than I can about the economic and creative culture contribution but, given the Government’s commitment to levelling up, you would think that the contribution of the BBC through Salford and all its local and regional outputs would be a significant part of what is to be considered.
I am sorry this is a bit like a sermon, but I will focus on three words to make my points: “British”, “Broadcasting” and “Corporation”. The Minister is right that the BBC must do more to reflect the country’s
“genuine diversity of thought and experience”,
but the BBC also shapes British identity; it does not just reflect it. It is a really subtle relationship, which goes both ways. In terms of the importance of public service in a country that has grown more secular, as well as more plural, the level of religious illiteracy and the lack of religious grammar is very significant for public service broadcasting.
“Nation shall speak peace unto nation.”
That, of course, is an adaptation of the prophet Micah, and that is where the roots of this lie. You cannot just cut off the institution from the roots that have informed it. We are grateful for the religious broadcasting that takes place, particularly on local radio and Radios 2 and 4 on Sunday mornings, reaching audiences who otherwise would not be reached. This helps to build relationships between faith communities. It is not just a Christian monopoly, because religious broadcasting has developed.
That was about British identity and how Britain has grown and developed. There is also a sense in which broadcasting continues to be significant. It is not just narrowcasting, which happens so much through social media and can be deeply influenced, in ways unseen, from outside. This is in parentheses, for the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Salisbury to comment on: why do we not have that report on Russian interference in our previous election and referendum processes? That is of huge significance in terms of how easy it is to influence narrowcasting through social media. The BBC does a really good job of broadcasting critical debate that is robust and helps to establish, over time, an element of truth otherwise not there.
1:06 pm
Lord Puttnam (Lab)
My Lords, I too thank the noble Lord, Lord Young, for making possible this incredibly timely debate—albeit the Roger Bannister version, as I view it. In the short time available, I hope to remind your Lordships that the current project to undermine public service broadcasting is not new. It is simply the most recent iteration of a decades-long campaign of salami-slicing and intimidation by, I am sad to say, successive Conservative Governments, many of whom have sought to take the wind out of the BBC’s sails and erode the trust it enjoys among the public. It is the now-familiar Putin playbook: promote fear and distrust, and allow the consequences to multiply.
As the noble Lord, Lord McNally, has already suggested, there is something rather ironic in the determination shown by Conservative leaders to dismantle an institution of which the party itself should be rightly proud. Perhaps the Prime Minister has forgotten that it was under the leadership of his hero, Winston Churchill, that a Conservative Government passed the Television Act 1954—legislation that protected the position of the BBC while, at the same time, introducing a brilliantly conceived system of regulated competition through a new Independent Television Authority. This system established a nationwide ecology—there is that word again—of public service broadcasting that allowed all aspects of the media to thrive. Crucially, while there was competition for audiences, the BBC/ITV duopoly did not compete for revenue.
The one-nation vision that lay at the heart of policy-making 60 years ago would appear to have evaporated and turned into something rather more sinister. There is no lack of vision in this Government’s policy towards the BBC. The vision is there; it was laid out with paint- by-numbers clarity by the Prime Minister’s principal adviser, Dominic Cummings, in 2004. Writing that year, he called for a campaign to undermine the corporation’s credibility, suggesting that:
“The BBC is a determined propagandist with a coherent ideology.”
To combat this, he argued for the creation of a British version of Fox News. He believed this could be achieved through a
“campaign to end the licence fee”.
Here was a vision that represented a massive departure from Conservatism, certainly as most Members of this House would understand it. Its genesis was that of Trumpian populism, an ideology that treats contempt for institutions as a form of political weaponry and is a long way from the wisdom of Edmund Burke, who once said:
“Rage and frenzy will pull down more in half an hour than prudence, deliberation, and foresight can build up in a hundred years.”
My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Puttnam, and to congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Young, on introducing this debate. I must declare an interest: throughout his working life, my father worked for the BBC in a humble administrative capacity, so I was brought up with a filial affection for the corporation—unfortunately, one not reciprocated by it.
My affection persists but does not blind me to the BBC’s faults. Nor do those faults, which I shall discuss, make me want to end the licence fee, either to punish it or to try to remedy those faults, which I do not think it would not do—although I fear that the licence fee may be eroded by technology. The aims of the BBC, as has been said, are to inform, educate and entertain. At its best, it does all those superbly. In the current coronavirus situation, the information role of the BBC has been invaluable. On education, “In Our Time”, presented by the noble Lord, Lord Bragg, is always superb; we heard this morning about Paul Dirac. To me, as a physicist, that was wonderful to hear. On entertainment, it produces some unmatched comedies and dramas.
Sadly, however, we should admit—although I think I will be the only person in this debate to do so—that people in the BBC have a certain groupthink on some key issues, notably immigration, climate change and Europe. Instead of informing on those issues, it censors; instead of educating, it seeks to indoctrinate; and instead of entertaining, it seeks to preach. I will give concrete examples from my own experience, not because that experience is important but because I can be sure that the examples are factual rather than vague allegations.
People in the BBC, typical of the metropolitan elites, see migration as a key issue for virtue signalling, as well as it being in their own economic interest to oppose any controls on migration. Invariably, they cite the need for nurses, because insufficient people in this country want to train as nurses, so we have to import them from abroad. That has been sustained by the BBC, but it is untrue. When I appeared on the BBC three years ago and pointed out that 40,000 applicants that year had been turned away from nursing courses in this country, the BBC expressed scorn and subsequently phoned me up to demand that I prove it—clearly intending to challenge me. I was able to prove it in 10 minutes with figures from the Royal College of Nursing and UCAS, but the BBC has never used that information since. As a result, I doubt whether there is a Member in this House who knows that last year, 24,000 applicants for nursing courses in this country were turned away because those courses are still rationed.
Censorship persists, even in this House—but of course I give way to my noble friend. I shall put my views online. Those who are interested in fact rather than its suppression may read them there.
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In our report, we said we would miss the PSBs when they had gone and, as I said, we highlighted what needed to be done to ensure that that did not happen. That is not down to the Government alone. The PSBs, most particularly the BBC, have to change and adapt. I agree with the Secretary of State, who said today that diversity is about more than reaching younger and BAME audiences, critical though that is; it is about having fair and broad on-screen representation across all communities and reflecting the views of people outside London. Genuine impartiality is about having genuine diversity of thought and experience.
I pay tribute to the select committee that I chair. It is typical of your Lordships’ House: expert, experienced and diligent. We produced a comprehensive report and I have had only a moment or two to touch on a few of our recommendations. However, I want to touch on the issue of the future funding of the BBC. We looked at the evidence and took the view that the licence fee continues to be the best way to fund the BBC. We found that the BBC should not have been asked, nor should it have agreed, to take on the funding of over-75 free licences. However, while we were critical of the Government, we were also critical of the BBC, which negotiated that settlement, which came as part of a wider package that it welcomed at the time. We felt strongly that the way in which the BBC is funded needs to be open and transparent on all sides. We called for a funding commission. The Government may not agree with that or think that it is the right way forward, but does the Minister agree with Margot James, the then Minister, who said in evidence to the Committee that there was
“clearly a case for greater transparency”?
Does the Minister agree that the right way to have this debate is to start by asking what we as a society want the BBC to do, work out what that will cost and then, and only then, look at how that cost can be met? Does she agree that, while the BBC faces huge challenges and most certainly makes mistakes, it has a vital role in our human lives and our future economy, and that our task is to help it to meet those challenges and to thrive?
Lastly, does the Minister agree that finding someone to fill the inestimable boots of the noble Lord, Lord Hall, whom I thank warmly for his services as director-general, is going to be one tough task, and one that is for the BBC alone?
“Core values” as a term applied to the BBC makes me uneasy, since it suggests that you can strip back to the core. A diminished BBC would be a blander BBC and make us a considerably poorer country. The BBC echoes the wider values of society because, at its best, it speaks to and for everyone by virtue of it being a public platform. This is true even if it is left to individuals to pay for the licence fee, rather than everyone doing so through their taxes. The BBC’s ethos informs all parts of its output. There is immense value still in a commercial-free zone, including for young children. It is a choice that viewers and listeners ought to have the right to.
I am not certain that the public are properly aware of what the licence fee continues to provide, although I am sure we will hear much of this today. It should be food for thought: a nexus of broadcasting; original programming—although this should be proportionately more, in my view; creative development; events and festivals; orchestras and choirs; and much more. These are aspects of a unique culture which most people will access or be a part of, even if, at a particular time in their lives, they are not always tuning in. A recent poll shows that 79% of the public would like the Government to continue to pay for the over-75s but, if we lost the licence fee or—more to the point—the moneys that the licence fee brings, we would not have this unique and extraordinary service, which continues to be a huge creative force and a force for good in not only this country, but the world.
Corporations need cherishing. This is about the body, an institution. In our time, we are not good at cherishing institutions and we need to do it in a way that upholds the body of the institution for the sake of the country. This is not one of those bodies that needs to be dealt with by disruption and discontinuity. It needs to be cherished, and the Government need to know that we want the BBC to be safe in their hands.
For the past few months I have spent a great deal of my life in the Committee Corridor, chairing a Select Committee looking at the impact of digital technology on democracy. One thing has already emerged with quite frightening clarity: confusion over where to seek verifiable fact. However, thanks largely to the vision of the noble Lord, Lord Birt, who I am delighted is in his place, and as recently confirmed by Ofcom, the BBC has emerged as the digital gold standard in the provision of trusted information in an era of fake news. Surely, as we stand on the brink of a global pandemic, that gold standard of trust is more crucial than it has ever been.
This can no longer be about the wilful vengeance of politicians; it is about the very real possibility of saving lives. To paraphrase the noble Lord, Lord Hennessy, speaking in this House just two months ago, trust is the scarcest and most precious political metal we have. Sad to say, I am far from reassured by the Secretary of State’s well-trailed retreat from earlier briefings. I can only repeat my belief that we are watching a well-rehearsed process of intimidation and destabilisation. Hopefully, when she comes to respond to the debate the Minister will unequivocally assure me that I am wrong, because we cannot allow an unremitting vendetta to rob us of the most valuable asset that democracy has at its disposal.
The second issue is climate change. I was asked by Quentin Letts to appear on a witty programme, “What’s the Point Of…?”, about the Met Office. They invited the only two members of the Climate Change Committee in the other place who had been scientifically trained, of whom I was one. I explained that, while obviously I believe in the science of global warming—I studied physics at Cambridge—the sensitivity of the climate to a given amount of CO2 is likely to be at the lower end of the spectrum spelled out by the IPCC, rather than the higher end which the Met Office always assumed. To illustrate my point, I pointed out that the Met Office produced a glossy pamphlet in 2004 saying that with its new computer, it could forecast accurately the future warming of the planet and that over the next decade—by 2014—it would have increased by 0.3 degrees. But 2014 had passed and we knew that it had in fact increased by between nothing and a tiny proportion of that amount.
Following this, there was an eruption from all the eco-fascists and within the BBC. The BBC referred itself to the BBC Trust for, in its words, “Giving voice to people like Peter Lilley”. This is the organisation that was proud to give voice to the IRA—but it was anxious not to give voice to me. It then removed the whole programme from the website and published an apology for ever having allowed me to utter this simple truth: the Met Office had got its long-term forecast wrong.
I am sorry if I am overrunning, but I am the only spokesman for the opposition in this debate and it is normal to give the opposition a little more space. The third issue I want to raise is the EU. The debate over the last three years has focused on attempts by remainers to keep the UK in the customs union, rather than just a free-trade association.
It ends on one interesting little line:
“It is also important to note that the Netflix model is based on a long-term debt of over $12 bn.”
That concentrates the mind a bit.
In introducing this debate, I want to focus on the BBC’s contribution to the cultural and creative economy, as the title of the debate states. I am an avid viewer and listener across a range of channels, including Netflix, and I recognise that we live in a global multimedia world. I cannot help reflecting that when public service broadcasting began, Lord Reith, the first director-general, coined what I believe to be one of the best ever mission statements. He said that the role of the BBC was to “inform, educate and entertain”. Those criteria are still relevant to public service broadcasters in today’s multimedia environment.
To put creative industries in context, they contribute some £100.5 billion to the UK economy, and public service broadcasters make an enormous contribution to the industry. The BBC is the biggest single investor in the UK creative industries. It contributes hundreds of millions of pounds to the wider sector. Every £1 spent on the BBC through the licence fee produces £2 in value through jobs, economic opportunities and expenditure. The Impact of a Change in the BBC’s Licence Fee Revenue report, produced by PwC in 2015, found that every £1 increase in licence fee revenue would generate about 60p of extra economic value. Conversely, a 25% decrease in the licence fee over five years would slash GDP by £630 million and lead to 32,000 job losses.
BBC research and development alone delivers significant value to the creative community, the wider industry and the UK economy. Every £1 spent by the BBC on research and development during the last charter delivered a return of at least £5 to £9 to the UK. That equates to a total economic benefit of between £827 million and £1.4 billion in the period 2007 to 2016.
The licence fee underpins not only the BBC but the competitive environment that supports the success of UK broadcasting. When the BBC performs well, commercial broadcasters raise their game to compete for audiences, which challenges the BBC to aim higher. In other words, it is a positive feedback loop, not a zero-sum game.
BBC investment over many decades has helped to develop significant creative economies across the UK. It has major production centres in Glasgow, Cardiff, Belfast, Salford, Bristol, Birmingham and London, so it is not true to say that it is just urban—although those are urban centres. Its range is far and wide, and over 50% of the BBC’s employee and network television spend is outside London. This investment has driven not just BBC creativity but significant hubs of independent production. For example, Bristol has become an international hub for natural history production, following decades of BBC investment in its Natural History Unit, and Wales is home to BBC hits such as “Doctor Who” and “His Dark Materials”.
The BBC has announced further plans to support small and emerging independents across the UK. It already commissions significantly more small producers and out-of-London producers than any other broadcaster, and these new measures will boost the strength of UK production across the country. The measures will include a £1 million small independent fund to support small and emerging companies; bespoke deals such as tailored cash flow terms, shared risk arrangements and help securing third-party funding; and tailored events to build stronger connections between emerging small companies and the BBC. Public service broadcasters employ over 500 trained journalists, and sponsor journalists for local media, and a significant number of apprentices.
On the apprenticeship front, it was interesting to see that the BBC spent over £7 million in 2017, rising to £12.7 million in 2018, on entry-level schemes and apprenticeships. It has also ring-fenced work experience placements for unemployed young people via Jobcentre Plus, and visited over 1,000 schools through the BBC Young Reporter project to help develop media literacy skills and inspire the next generation of journalists, no matter what their background, in order to give everyone with the potential to succeed the opportunity to work in the industry, and not just in the BBC. It has also launched a pre-joiner programme, Get In To Media, developed with support from the Sutton Trust and MyKindaFuture.
The next generation of young journalists, producers and directors will make a vital contribution to the creative economy. Interestingly, the BBC has banned unpaid internships, and all the work experience placements are capped at two weeks, except in rare circumstances. Therefore, a huge contribution to the creative economy environment is made not just by the BBC but by all other public service broadcasters.
In a speech by the chief executive of ITV to the APPG, she said:
“The name will need to change because”
public service broadcasting
“won’t just be about broadcasting in future.”
That is absolutely true. We are moving into an era of streaming as well as broadcasting—in fact, we are not moving into it; we are already there. She continued:
“But the job of making programmes with a public purpose, available to everyone, is essential in the 21st Century. A gold standard of trusted national and local journalism amidst the anarchy of fake news.”
That is a very pertinent comment.
I want to talk about the future. We are now in a post-Brexit environment where our flourishing creative industries will make an even more vital contribution to the UK economy. Public service broadcasters, which are the envy of the world, do much to promote UK culture and values, as I have already said. The current arrangement with the licence fee, and with advertising supporting the other public service broadcast channels, is a delicate balance. As I explored earlier, changing the BBC to a subscription service or making it dependent on advertising will undermine public service broadcasting.
I hope that in replying the Minister will let us know the Government’s intentions. Do they recognise the importance of public service broadcasting to the creative economy? I—and, I think, many others—dispute the idea that changing from the licence fee will be an easily achieved objective. I, along with many others, believe that, no matter what threats might emanate from the Government, there will be a fight to preserve the independence of this vital asset, which is admired by practically every other country around the world as an independent—I stress that word—public service broadcaster, and I believe that everybody in this Chamber will join in that fight to preserve the vital nature of public service broadcasting.
I have tried to restrict my contribution to this debate in the hope that a few more minutes might be available to others, but I end by quoting the words of one of my favourite songwriters, Joni Mitchell, who said that
“you don’t know what you’ve got till it’s gone”.
I hope that we never see the day when the BBC and public service broadcasting in the way we know it today—independent, wide-ranging and serving the needs of our nation—ever disappears.
In his remarks, the noble Lord, Lord Young, spelled out the various ways in which the BBC has contributed to our national life for over a century. It has been the source that everybody turns to for the news when there is a crisis. I would like to see the alleged research that shows that people look to Sky or to CNN, good as they are. When the going gets tough, the tough turns to the BBC. Those values that the BBC has embodied for almost a century have been supported by Governments of all parties. As the noble Lord, Lord Young, warned us so well, once lost, those values brought by the BBC to our national life will never be recovered. If we lose them, Fox News, here we come.