We know that the BBC is one of the best things about Britain - ignore The Spectator's ignorant rant.

Sadly there is a type of journalism that perhaps sees itself as iconoclastic - but is in reality ignorant, blinkered and foolish. There is an example in "The Spectator" today  where in an unsigned leader the BBC gets a bashing. in this piece there is no  attempt at balance. Just a splenetic rant driven by the sort of simplistic black/white, good/bad gut ideology that gives the journalistic profession a bad name. 

There is a curious British inclination for some to want to hurt the thing we love. I would place the BBC close to the top of the things that make me proud to be British. And having lived abroad for long periods and travelled widely I can say without hesitation that the Corporation is the one thing I missed most when away and most looked forward to enjoying again when I got home. 

The writer of this illiterate polemic uses preposterous and frankly unworthy statements to attempt to prove his/her point that the BBC should be privatised. Let me take just one. "Sky produces some of the best Arts coverage in Britain". Having recently watched a concert on Sky Arts during which their were advertisements between the movements of. Symphony (!) I can only say that Sky Arts does not deserve to be mentioned in the same breath as the BBC. I would happily pay my 40p per day Licence Fee for Radio Three alone. Indeed I would pay it just for the Proms!

When we hold the value of the BBC up against that of any other medium it is an astonishing bargain. 40 pence per day per household! That's cheaper than "The Spectator"  - and surely even the most fanatical supporter of that excellent magazine would not claim that the Speccy offers anything of the breadth and the diversity of our great National broadcaster? The cost of the BBC Licence Fee is chicken feed and the Corporation does all it can to make it painless to pay this very modest amount. 

But ideologues will always winge and rant I suppose. As ever they will use selective data and slanted opinions to make their fanatical points. In a democracy we tolerate the fact that there will be those who seek to criticise if the basis of something does not conform to their prejudice. Here it is the old chestnut of, as Orwell might have put it, "Public ownership bad, Private Enterprise good". So Sky for which I pay £720 per year so that I can watch top sport, is better than the BBC, for which I pay £145.50! Only the utterly foolish or the unreformably blinkered would call Sky the better deal of the two!