BBC tantrum for chancellor

On the day of his Autumn Statement, Chancellor George Osborne had a petulant moment with John Humphrys on the Today programme, accusing the BBC of “hyberbolic coverage” of Government spending cuts.

The reason for his tantrum lay in an earlier exchange between Humphrys and the BBC’s assistant political editor, Norman Smith. Speaking just after 6am, Smith addressed the Office For Budget Responsibility’s report on the cuts, saying: “When you sit down and read the OBR report it reads like a book of doom. It’s utterly terrifying... You’re back in the land of The Road To Wigan Pier.”

The Chancellor caught this colourful exchange, perhaps with spoon hovering reluctantly over porridge, and it put him in a bad mood. He was particularly annoyed by the reference to George Orwell’s bleak 1930s book about poverty in the north of England.

So when he went on air two hours later, the Chancellor had a ratty exchange with John Humphrys. This led the following morning to a blizzard of aggressively anti-BBC headlines in many of the national newspapers, especially those that habitually hate the BBC – either because their owner tells them to, or because they are ideologically opposed to the corporation.

This was followed at the weekend by a leader article in the Sunday Times arguing that “Britain needed to be saved from the BBC”. I don’t buy that newspaper and had to rely on a review of the papers on BBC Radio 4 for this information. Incidentally, I didn’t hear all of the interview with the Chancellor either as instead I fell to swearing and activated the off button.

Newspapers owned by Rupert Murdoch, such as The Times, Sunday Times and The Sun, are obliged to hate the Beeb – mostly, it is generally assumed, because Mr Murdoch feels that the BBC in some way hampers his assorted media businesses.

The Chancellor’s mini-budget/blatant pre-election sweetener (delete according to personal inclination) received a pretty good report in many of the newspapers. Indeed, when I glanced at a copy of The Times at work, I wondered if I had picked up a Government press release by mistake.

As for The Sunday Times fearing that we need to be saved from the BBC, it would be as easy to argue that Britain needs saving from Mr Murdoch, not that any government has ever been brave enough to stand up to this press baron.

In truth, the BBC is a big part of the national picture, a cornerstone of our life and media, far from perfect, but playing a vital role in the calibration of opinion and providing a wealth of entertainment. If the likes of Mr Murdoch ever had their dreams fulfilled and the BBC disappeared, or was much reduced, we would be all the poorer for such a sad diminution.

As for governments, they often fall out with the BBC. New Labour was always at this inglorious game, fulminating about this or that supposed act of bias.

To understand why this sometimes happens, you have to resort to the Dictionary of Government Doublespeak.... “Bias: noun, the airing on the BBC of facts and figures that are jolly embarrassing and shouldn’t be allowed...”

If the BBC is occasionally accused of broadcasting too many repeats, many of our newspapers are guilty of similar behaviour, endlessly repeating old anti-Beeb stories.

With an election on the horizon – it’s that dark and forbidding shape you can just about make out on a clear day – we are likely to see more of this aggression from the Conservatives, many of whom hate the BBC with a passion, along with any number of other things too.

Some of them don’t like foodbanks at all, feeling that people only go along because they’ve heard there is “free food” on offer.

This is a pretty offensive attitude, isn’t it? Anyway, the Conservatives have this week been trying to avert a chasm with the Church of England after an all-party report on food banks – funded by the Church – warned that Britain was stalked by hunger caused by low-pay, inequality and harsh benefits sanctions.

So clearly the Church must be in cahoots with the BBC.