It’s possible to spend ages pondering a vital decision and still overlook a crucial consequence of it. Remember the debates before the Brexit referendum in which the Irish border was barely mentioned? I fear it’s happening again as we discuss whether the BBC should continue to be funded by a licence fee imposed on every household or (as this newspaper and many Tory politicians propose) by voluntary subscription.
As the father of three millennials who never watch BBC TV, I have sympathy for those who don’t see why they are forced to pay for public broadcasting they don’t use. However, as an old hack who doesn’t want his country to sleepwalk into cultural catastrophe, I hear alarm bells ringing too loudly to be ignored.
Once
