I BELONG TO THAT SMALL BAND OF OBSESSIVES who think that one of the most important issues facing the country is reform of the BBC. For more than 20 years now — since the time I was a reporter on the Today programme — I have been agitating to get the BBC to live up to its promise to be impartial. It has been a long and frustrating road and, in moments of self-doubt, an awkward question nags away: is the BBC reformable?
From its inception, a century ago, the idea of a national broadcaster provoked the ire of the powerful newspaper barons who saw it as a threat to their dominance. Throughout its existence Tory MPs have been getting to their feet in the House of Commons to denounce the BBC as unpatriotic and subversive. Yet, life has gone on much as before.
But in recent years there has been a growing awareness among people on the right of politics that the tone of the
