Well said John, and as Johnny Norfolk mentions above re: BBC left wing bias.

The size of the BBC is always going to cause a problem, and rather like ‘The Westminster Village’ effect where the outside world sometimes seems like a different world entirely to those within, BBC staff seem to have been sucked into a bubble of self-perpetuating political correctness which has ended up with the organisation veering increasingly to the left.

As the BBC doesn’t have to fight for funding with anyone but the Government, it is only the Government of the day that they need to truly please.

If at least a proportion of the BBC’s funding had to be earned by producing programmes that accurately reflect the public’s concerns and not exclusively the Government’s, then perhaps the BBC would return a bit more to the unbiased centre where they are supposed to be.

The litmus test of how the BBC has changed for the worse in recent years is Panorama. Once a hard-hitting and often controversial investigative show, it is now just limp, pallid and lightweight, only investigating stories that will confirm the Government’s current line on any particular subject.

The BBC produces one show on Europe outside of a general Europe wide news roundup on the world service. However it is hidden away at 3.30 am on BBC News/Parliament channels almost as if they would rather people didnt watch it. So, by the way, is the very good Hard Talk and Straight Talk with Andrew Neil, meanwhile pap like The One Show and Eggheads recieve primetime slots.

Where are the political programmes educating people on the EU or just their European neighbours?

When was the last time there was a really good series on British history, or indeed history in general. There are many millions of migrants in Britain, and native Brits, who have little knowledge of UK history, they would particularly benefit for example.

The BBC does produce great documentaries, one of my favourites is A Picture of Britain, but they are frequently relegated only to a specialist channel, BBC 4, unlike the childrens tv.
Also once shown they are remiss to repeat them again, perhaps because they would rather sell the DVDs on Amazon. It seems a waste not to repeat excellent documentaries.

Channel 4 at least make an effort. In the morning they run programmes about teenage issues, job hunting and career advice as well as documentaries, good ones recently included a history of British castles and another on medieval weaponary.
I also like Unreported World which is given a primetime evening slot. I am sure if the BBC were involved it would be buried away at 2 am on BBC news.

During the recent Manuelgate affair the 800k DG was on holiday, the 500k deputy had gone missing, possibly on holiday too and the head of operations, supposedly in charge, as far as i can tell was a no show. I dont recall seeing her in the media.

Just a few ideas and complaints.

Run the domestic radio stations as commercial services, but retain the world service as a tax funded entity like eg. VOA.

The essential part is giving the citizen choice, and doing away with the compulsory broadcast taxation.

It seems wrong that the public should be subsidising the BBC to compete so broadly with commercial networks.

I'd propose retaining the BBC Newsgathering operation (still I believe the biggest such in the world) paid for by an independent fund established from taxes, sale of BBC properties and from income from existing BBC rights. The licence fee would be abolished. The new BBC would produce and sell news stories, analysis and suchlike, and be free to access in the UK.

The BBC World Service might be funded from the same source, or as now by grant to the Foreign Office – in any case this service needs bolstering up, I think.

I suspect an attempt to redesign BBC management would result in a swarm of management consultants collecting huge fees and achieving little long-term benefit.

Furthermore, what I need to hear from tories is how you will make my life cheaper. Yesterday the telegraph ran with a sotry that the tories would cut the TV tax by £6. Whoopie do! Try £56.

We are not impressed with your fiddling round the edges and unless the tories can make me several hundred pound better off by deregulating and slashing income tax, there is no way Im going to bother voting.

I'm struggling to fix problems with my house, I have debt problems and I have nothing left over to save. You and you alone have the power to make me better off. Presently, the inland revenue takes £1000 a month from my household income by force under threat of jail.

Are the tories going to slash spending and cut our taxes so that we may keep our wealth? these miserable little numbers you throw about and mealy mouthed mutterings about tax credits and sharing the proceeds of growth. You are offering nothing different to the status quo.

What is worse is your committee and departmental meetings are nothing but chari shuffling and Ive watched you all on BBC parliament and you never talk about how we're going to keep the lights on or how you're going to let us keep our wealth. You have no impact on our lives except for making us poorer.

And that is why we hate you and that is why I'm not bothering to vote.

To quote Nicholas Winterton… Political parties have, in addition, contributed to the emasculation of the House through the candidate selection process in seeking only safe, amenable and malleable candidates who will do the Party's bidding on all occasions and frequently without question, whatever their own views might be.

They must all be "on message". Individuals with a mind of their own, strong views, a real experience of life and with independent leaning are not welcome. Party officials and whips describe them as the "awkward squad", but thank goodness there are still a few who have slipped through the net and who enliven the House from time to time.

You are all beyond the pale and we have nothing left but contempt for you all. Unless you take the power back from the EU you will remain irrelevant and powerless.

You are are protected in the westminster bubble with privelage and monies, guarded by armed police and thats why we cant reach you to do to you that which you deserve.

You will remain in an impenetrable bubble protected from everyday realities and hardships we all face daily, surrounded by your wannabes and yes men while the economy is going to hell, society is breaking down and we no longer have influence on how we are governed.

We face the real possibility of power cuts, public sector strikes and increasing fuel poverty and the political classes are only interested in managing themselves and channelling funds to their cronies to build white elephant windfarms or databases.

You have outlived your usefulness and when the bread runs out and the circus skips town, we will come for you…

Stop pandering to the media and come up with some policies that actually matter. Give us our money back and let us be the agent of change in our lives because your "government" is incapable fo doing it for us no matter how much money you force form us, no matter how big it gets or whether the PM wears a red hat or a blue one. (Rest of rant left out)

Its the left wing bias that does me in. They should not be allowed to get away with it.

The ammount of self advertising the BBC does in between programes may as well be paid adverts as they are both just as iritating.

Thank you for this excellent article. Having read the Sunday Telegraph about the Tories plan to prune the Licence Fee I was delighted.

Then I watched the Andrew Marr programme and heard the Director General say, in relation to the Sunday Telegraph story, that he had been contacted last evening by a member of the Conservative Shadow Cabinet and assured that the story was not conservative party policy.

I despair that the leadership of the party cannot see how this, if it was policy, would be welcomed by every home in the land. A golden opportunity indeed. However I am now concerned that the leadership is out of touch with the people and wonder if they have any tax reducing policies at all!

Good luck to you.

on the larger point trim the bbc to just under 1 employee and sack the rest