Once a global beacon for high quality broadcasting, the BBC is now the bastion of socialism, writes Nadine Dorries

Those principles were the cornerstone of the corporation’s public service mission. They are principles which to this day, the BBC claims to uphold, but nothing could be further from the truth.

It is impossible to believe that the BBC today is an organisation Lord Reith would be proud of having founded or that he could have foreseen a day when the organisation condoned hateful, antisemitic content inciting violence which is exactly what happened when BBC executives took the decision to livestream the Bob Vylan set at Glastonbury. Far from enlightening, educating or entertaining, in taking that decision the BBC chose to join conspiracy-theory social media sites in a race to the gutter in a desperate attempt to increase viewing figures.

There are things the BBC does well and we should give praise where it’s due. It was once a global beacon for high quality broadcasting. Sadly an image which has now been tarnished beyond repair.

I don’t believe any of us know anyone under 30 who will sit down with a remote control in their hand and select the BBC as their source of entertainment or news. This is evident as the BBC lost half-a-million licence fee payers last year.

I believe the BBC is one of the main supporting pillars of socialism in Britain today and that it is fundamentally antisemitic. After the events of the weekend, who can doubt it? It lacks impartiality which it is legally and morally obliged to adhere to as a public service broadcaster.

The vast majority of its employees are made of a London-based, metro elite who have a one-dimensional and skewed left-wing view which fails to chime with most British people's world view. It began with Savile, but now crosses red lines with increasing monotony. The Glastonbury chants of Bob Vylan and Kneecap's performance are being investigated by the police. The BBC finds itself embroiled in yet another possibly criminal scandal.

I have been told there is a hard line dominant and assertive group within the organisation who are determined to ensure the BBC sticks to a pro-Gaza line. How do they do this? By creating a culture of fear in order that those who may have a different view point, fail to speak out.

When I was appointed Culture Secretary, it was obvious to me that the BBC was in desperate need of reform.

The organisation was too large, there were far too many reports claiming of an established culture of bullying. It was a shock to me to discover that 74 per cent of those who were prosecuted for non-payment of the licence fee were women. Many of those were pensioners. There seemed to me very little about how the BBC ran itself which actually worked. The viewing public could choose from Netflix and Amazon Prime and they were doing so, in rapidly increasing numbers. The BBC was quite clearly failing and was unsustainable in the long term in its present format and via the existing funding model.

I asked civil servants in my department, DCMS, to prepare to launch a review into the licence fee and alternative funding models. The Royal Charter is due for renewal in 2027 and I knew we needed three to four years to prepare a transition. I froze the licence fee for two years, a decision that made BBC executives very unhappy and I also made a statement that the end of the licence fee was nigh. Even I, no stranger to controversy, was not prepared for the furore or the backlash from those who know that the BBC is the bastion of socialism and fought tooth and nail to protect it.

The backlash was so severe, the then-Prime Minister Boris Johnson had a one-on-one conversation with me early one Sunday morning. He was also feeling the heat in No10. He wanted to know why I thought the days of the licence fee was over and why the BBC was in need of reform. At the end of our conversation, he told me he had my back and I knew that was difficult for him because people far more influential than I were lobbying him to shut me down.

The work was done and ready to go and that’s when I came across shock number two, the support from within the cabinet and among Conservative MPs was weak. Those MPs on the 'left' of the party, dominant in the rump of Conservative MPs, were totally opposed. As it was, the review never went ahead, the process was halted by Rishi Sunak , then Chancellor. He informed me that the licence fee was tax policy and therefore his responsibility in the Treasury. It was nonsense. None of the licence fee is collected by the Treasury and placed in a ledger marked 'general taxation'.

The fact is that without reform, we will all now be forced to watch the BBC slip into decline as it loses even more licence fee payers and fights even harder for viewers. It will be an unedifying sight and one which could have been avoided with a little foresight and bravery, sadly, both qualities in short supply in Westminster as I discovered to my cost.

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Nadine Dorries is the former Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport in the United Kingdom.

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