COLUMNISTS like to roll out favourite topics and polish them every so often. So here, given another push into daylight, are my thoughts on why we should be grateful for the BBC. Such a modest line of argument can inflame excitable sensibilities. Saying you approve of the BBC is enough to raise some people's blood pressure to alarming levels.

At the moment, the BBC needs all the friends it can get (even one who, thanks to a domestic oversight, was once fined for not paying the licence fee). The grinding progress of the Hutton inquiry has afforded the BBC's many critics, from grand-standing New Labour politicians to right-wing national newspapers, a chance to unzip their spleens and dispose of all that stored up bile.

Reporting of Hutton, a sort of inquisitorial tortoise slowly nibbling through the evidence surrounding the death of the Government scientist David Kelly, has allowed certain newspapers to rant and rage at will.

The Daily Telegraph has a ludicrous Beebwatch column, which claims to track bias in what the corporation reports. I bet all the reporters are fighting to get that job... "Damn, just fell asleep during the Six O'Clock News... I'd better switch to Radio 4 and see if the Archers is up to its usual pinko tricks." Meanwhile the Sun, laying into Today reporter Andrew Gilligan, whines: "The BBC must sack the hopeless hack Gilligan." So the BBC should take lessons in journalistic ethics from the excitable, titillating Sun; well, there's a challenge.

Leaving aside the rights and wrongs of how Andrew Gilligan reported the "45-minute" story about Saddam's capability to attack us, far more interesting is the dawning suspicion that the Government did bully and browbeat the nation into accepting the Gulf War.

As to the beleaguered Corporation, the BBC always faces attack under a "damned if" clause. It's damned for failure - and damned for success. If it fails, it's a waste of public money; if it triumphs it has an unfair advantage.

Most of those who criticise the corporation in print have been handed axes to grind by their bosses. Conrad Black, the Canadian owner of the Daily Telegraph, curiously detests the BBC. While Rupert Murdoch, the Australian-American who owns News International, would love to see the BBC crumble so he could further build up his Sky empire.

Both the BBC and BSkyB have added to Britain's cultural life - but Sky's contribution is as a pea compared to a boulder. The BBC may be far from perfect but its enormous creative mass, generating news, drama, document-aries, soaps and more across television, radio and the internet, makes a huge contribution to British life.

To will this away, or to reduce the BBC to a public service ghetto, would be a massive depletion. The BBC and its licence fee may seem an anomaly in this multi-channel age, but it's a lot cheaper than forking out for the full Sky package.

Besides, all those channels soon pall. Bruce Springsteen once sang about "57 channels and nothin' on". Now you can have 200 channels and nothing on - a flourishing of pointless choice that leads to attention-deficit viewing, the nervous tic of the channel-hopper who can't concentrate for more than a few seconds at a time.

The best argument for keeping the BBC is to imagine what we would gain by abolishing the corporation or forcing it to accept adverts. We would gain nothing and lose much.

A strong BBC is a keystone in British broadcasting. And it helps ward off the sort of predatory free-for-all that would arise if the Murdochs of this world had everything their way.

Updated: 10:12 Thursday, September 25, 2003