Panem et circenses

We think it's very nice of the Guardian's subeditors to offer us this opportunity to point to and giggle at Polly Toynbee:

Only the BBC could give us Bake Off and Strictly. We must protect it

Polly Toynbee

Because someone, somewhere, was always going to attach that headline above to it.

Yet there's more to this than just a giggle. For it betrays Polly's very patrician idea of what the State is for. It is to provide the entertainments, the diversions, which stop us plebs from rising up and throttling said patricians. Rather than our view of what said State is for, which is to do those few things which both must be done and can only be done by government.

And what really grates is that at least the Romans insisted that it was the patricians that paid for the bread and circuses, Polly's insistent that we must be charged for what she insists we must have:

If the BBC is to be truly independent, it should have written into its charter a permanent guarantee that it will always get a licence fee uprating to cover inflation – so as to keep off the interfering hands of governments, and all the threats and snarls that besiege it from Westminster.

In 100 pages, the BBC defends in detail its need to do the things heavily targeted by its enemies as ripe for selling off. But no commercial channel approaches Radio 1’s 65% new and live music, or the breadth of Radio 2’s specialist niche music. Radio 3 has depth and range but only 10% repeats, compared with unadventurous Classic FM’s 40%.

Read this document when it goes online at midday today and be amazed at what our public broadcaster does for so little cost. It’s a fine reminder of what you get for £12.13 a month,compared with Sky’s average bundle at £61 a month.

If we want it then we'll buy it, thank you so very much, Lady Bountiful.