Damaging 'Neutrality' at the BBC's Core

The BBC has had a very bad week – not quite as bad as Ed Miliband’s but one that was similarly infused with a sense of inevitable decline and collapse. Both the national broadcaster and the Labour Party endured public scandals which, it seemed by Friday, might end with criminal prosecutions. But a more interesting parallel was that two citadels of the Left-liberal establishment had reached a similar crisis of identity: could they continue to be self-referring, incestuous organisations, prey to the machinations of insiders and increasingly cut off from most people’s view of the world? The police may or may not end up bringing charges against BBC executives for handing out over-generous severance payments to departing managers: the legal case sounds a bit tenuous. But even if this never goes to court, the moral embarrassment is grotesque at a time when justifying the licence fee seems to rely almost entirely on public sentiment.