QUITE a lot of what Culture Secretary Nadine Dorries said yesterday about the BBC makes sense, but does she know where she is driving this great British institution to, and what she hopes it will look like when she has finished with it?

She’s right that the BBC’s impartiality can, at times, particularly on comedy shows, be questioned. She’s also right that the ever-increasing licence fee, which is currently £159, is of such magnitude that many people would think long before voluntarily committing to it, and she’s also right that the BBC’s sprawl is enormous: it has so many channels, podcasts and websites that, like a dominant tree in a forest, it prevents other sapling providers from taking root.

However, Ms Dorries cannot talk about ending the licence fee without suggesting a plausible alternative, the most obvious of which is a subscription model. But how would that work for radio, and how would it maintain the quality of the BBC’s excellent, varied and valuable output, including its local services, which will never gain a blockbuster audience.

When Ms Dorries talks of the BBC’s impartiality, it is worth remembering that there is nothing more partial than a politician – particularly not one whose Prime Minister is coming in for repeated criticism from all sections of the media, particularly not one who is known to want to throw “red meat” to Conservative voters in a bid to create an agenda that will stop them demanding the Prime Minister’s head.

Although the BBC does need to be reformed and re-concentrated, it does not need to be attacked by a politician with a dirty great axe that she’s not afraid to wield for political purposes.