The BBC has today been using its various news platforms to protest against being described as ‘government funded’ by Twitter. It has instructed Twitter to remove this insult ‘as soon as possible’ and its journalistic contacts have found a direct link to Elon Musk himself who, we are told, is a ‘fan’ of the BBC. So perhaps a quiet word with the right person in power can overcome this little hiccup. Radio Four even had a ‘debate’ which just featured one interviewee: Mary Hockaday, a former BBC executive. ‘As a BBC journalist, I care about accuracy,’ she said, ‘the simple fact is that to describe on Twitter the BBC as “state-funded” or “government controlled” is simply inaccurate… Much, much better to describe the BBC as it is which is publicly-funded’.  Of course, Twitter did not say ‘government controlled’ but ‘government funded’. Which, I’m afraid to say, the BBC undoubtedly is.

It generates three quarters of its money by the licence fee, a sum fixed by the government of the day. It is imposed like any government tax: that is, on pain of criminal sanction. Every working week almost 1,000 members of the public are prosecuted for non-payment of BBC dues, of whom more than two-thirds are women. If this number sounds high, that’s restrained compared to what it was a few years ago: figures below (compared with convictions for other crimes).

The BBC’s jesuitical excuse is that a private firm, Capita, does the dirty work (‘collection of the the licence fee and enforcement of non-payment is carried out by private companies contracted by the corporation, not the UK government.’) But the power behind this licence fee is, of course, governmental. Whether it should be or not is an important question, so it needs clear language. And one that Elon Musk is forcing the corporation to confront.

I love the BBC and think it’s one of the very best things about Britain. I’d gladly pay my licence fee for CBeebies alone – to think I get everything from Radio Four to Blue Lights for £159 a year is astonishing. I value the BBC more than all of my many other broadcast subscriptions put together. But I’ve never worked out why a multi-platform consumer of BBC content like me is charged precisely the same as a low-income single parent who, if given the chance, might wish to keep the £159 and do without the BBC. Technological advance makes this injustice harder than ever to justify.

Whenever it’s suggested that BBC non-payment is decriminalised, the BBC vigorously protests. Only the credible threat of prosecution, it argues, means its non-payment rates are low as they are (about 7 per cent). The reliance on this threat runs against the vibe of BBC’s marketing. The latest BBC advert lays its claim to belong to ‘all of us’ and represent all of us. But its threat of criminal prosecution is also aimed at all of us. I love that advert, but think it would be better if it featured some of the people who have ended up in jail over the years for non-payment of fines. There aren’t very many (about 30 a year when I last looked at it about ten years ago) but they matter. I’d argue these prosecutions are a stain on the BBC’s reputation: its output is of phenomenal quality. It could absolutely go independent and raise its own money without needing courts or prisons – it should have the confidence in the willingness of people to pay without being threatened.

The US has a tradition of listeners donating to radio stations who also take money from advertisers and sometimes direct state grants. They call themselves publicly-funded and you can see why. The National Trust is publicly-funded: paid for by members of the public who choose to join it. The RNLI is publicly-funded: via donations.

Justin Webb, on Radio Four, said the Times could be described on Twitter as ‘Rupert Murdoch-funded’. Not any more. The Times is, now, funded by its readers. Murdoch ran that outfit at a loss for years, as a labour of love. Now that investment has paid off and it’s making money big-time. The Times is Murdoch-owned but reader-funded: that’s what making a profit means. A loss-making publication needs a sugar-daddy. A profitable publication is one funded by readers and advertisers.

The BBC could be independent if it wanted. But instead it relies on a government-run apparatus – and to say that it’s really publicly-funded is a bit Orwellian. A statue of Orwell stands outside BBC headquarters. His essay Politics and the English Language remains the best guidebook to journalism (we give our copies of it to new staff at The Spectator) where he argues about the importance of truth and clarity.

In our time, political speech and writing are largely the defence of the indefensible. Things like the continuance of British rule in India, the Russian purges and deportations, the dropping of the atom bombs on Japan, can indeed be defended, but only by arguments which are too brutal for most people to face, and which do not square with the professed aims of political parties. Thus political language has to consist largely of euphemism, question-begging and sheer cloudy vagueness.

So euphemism, he says, is deployed to avoid arguments ‘too brutal for people to face’. The brutal point that the BBC seeks to avoid is the misery foisted upon some of the hardest-up people in the country who face tougher penalties for not paying the BBC than they would for missing water and gas payments.

Twitter is holding out, adding an ‘info’ point to a Tweet of someone complaining. It points out:

The BBC is principally funded through a licence fee paid by UK households; the amount is set by the government in a periodic ‘licence fee settlement’.  As with any government imposed tax, it’s government mandated. UK government is currently reviewing this arrangement.

So we’ll see how long the label stays.  If the BBC does not like the phrase ‘government funded’ it ought to consider the growing range of non-governmental alternatives which would raise the money it needs – and more – without the threat of criminal sanction.