We can’t let the Tories burn the BBC to the ground | Matt Mohan-Hickson

I managed to dig out the old radio in my parents’ kitchen, tuned it to BBC Radio Tees and then fiddled around with the antenna trying to find a signal.

It only took a couple of moments before the crackling disappeared and the Middlesbrough vs Mansfield match came through.

If I hadn’t thought about grabbing the radio I would have been left anxiously refreshing the BBC Sport app to follow along with the score.

That or have to fork out to pay for commentary via Boro’s website. But thankfully I could follow all the action as it happened thanks to Radio Tees.

I thought about this as I saw the Daily Mail’s front page on Sunday, promoted by Nadine Dorries, which basically suggested that the licence fee will be scrapped in five years.

The so-called culture secretary was gleefully harping on about tearing apart one of this country’s greatest institutions.

Whatever you may think of BBC News’s political coverage – it is so much more than that. It is BBC Bitesize, a study aid that I remember using growing up, it is BBC Sounds, BBC iPlayer, the Proms and the list goes on.

The BBC is one of the most trusted news sources in the United States, for example.

But because they’ve dared to publish negative stories about our Dear Leader all of this just has to be burnt to the ground.

It was particularly ironic that Nadine Dorries decided to use ‘the days of the elderly being threatened with prison sentences’ for not paying the licence fee as one of the reasons for her decision.

Remind me again which government decided to scrap free licences for the over-75s?

I’m not saying people can’t have legitimate gripes about having to pay it, but it feels like we often get so caught up in the BBC News side of things and lose sight of just how much the BBC actually offers us.

I have subscriptions for Netflix and Amazon and so-on, but aside from a few shows and movies what do I actually get out of them?

If we let this government sacrifice the BBC in the name of brazen politics, then it will be a very, very sad day. One we will live to regret, I suspect.

Sometimes truth is stranger than fiction

It feels like we are soon going to reach a critical mass of Downing Street party stories.

Over the weekend, I jokingly said to one of my friends that it is almost at the point where it would be more newsworthy to find out which days they didn’t have drinks and parties.

But there is a sort of bitter taste of truth to that sentiment.

We all sacrificed and suffered – cast your mind back to the first lockdown and how that actually was.

Yet the ones making the rules weren’t following them. If you were writing a work of fiction and came up with the suitcase full of wine you’d strike it as being too unrealistic.

But life is often stranger than fiction.

It’s only a question now of not if, but when the prime minister will go

Boris Johnson IS finished as Prime Minister, this scandal is a terminal one.

Everyone has a story of what they lost or sacrificed during the time that they were partying, it is not a Westminster bubble crisis that only people really into politics care about.

It is just a question of how long he stumbles on as a zombie prime minister. Will he drag his rotting administration to the May elections?

Will he try to cling on through to the 2024 general election? That seems unlikely – if the Conservative Party likes one thing, it is winning elections.

In times gone-by perhaps a prime minister would have stood down in the face of such fury and scandal, but that also seems unlikely.

I suspect that he will be out sooner rather than later, but I am not a betting man so I wouldn’t put money on that.