Who owns the nationalised corporations?

There are not many of them of them left now. Many of the former cases have been successfully privatised, with the result that they have become agents of enterprise and invention rather than the anti-change bureaucracies they used to be.

One of those left is the BBC, financed by taxation rather than consumer choice, and resisting all the controls to which other broadcasters must submit. I have written before that in its news broadcasts editorial politics frequently intrude, seemingly deliberately, to further the causes espoused by the organisation. I personally feel that there should be alternative radio news to enable listeners to receive a more balanced picture, but no other broadcaster has access to licence fees to enable this.

Yesterday The Mail on Line revealed that last year the BBC spent £81,000 of licence payers' money on a "bash" at Wimbledon. Guests numbering 170, were entertained in a marquee with generous hospitality of £18,281, with marquee costs of £53,528. A further £9,645 was spent on tickets, car parking, programmes and invitations.

The Mail also claimed that at the Glastonbury music festival £68,000 was spent on hospitality. What other events saw the BBC acting like some generous tycoon and buying public relations?

We know that last year the BBC also spent £3 million on first class and business class air flights. They do not seem to stint themselves either, apparently.

The defence from the Corporation is that it attends important events, which tennis lovers and music ravers might agree with, and provide less lavish hospitality than before. (Given that 170 guests and BBC personnel consumed £18,281 worth of hospitality at Wimbledon, as well as receiving tickets, it was generous provision. The BBC claims to have reduced such expenditure, so what on earth was the figure in former years?)

The BBC effectively taxes us to provide a large part of its income, - not available generally to other broadcasters, who will find severe problems as the recession develops. It is exempt from regulation that other broadcasters have to accept. It is (too) close to Government Now we hear that it is behaving like a generous millionaire in providing selected guests with elegant entertainment at public events.

It is to be hoped that if its hopes are defeated, and the Conservatives are elected to government, it may be reduced to competing with other broadcasters in the quality of its programmes rather than in the quality of its junketing.