Burnham brings a fighting chance for the future of the BBC

Opinion

Several ministers with experience as culture secretary are now in prominent positions in the new-look Government. Surely the future of the BBC is in good hands?

There is little chance that the media will be overlooked or marginalised by the new Labour Government, as it has too often been in the past.

After all, there are no less than three culture secretaries extant – two of them at the heart of government. 

The seventh culture secretary from 2007-2008 was James Purnell, now the powerful chief of staff in 10 Downing Street and who also just happens to be a former strategy and digital boss at the BBC who went on to run BBC Radio and education.

The eighth culture secretary from 2008-2009 was no less than Prime Minister Andy Burnham.

Their short stints illustrate very well the scandal of the role.

Since the department was launched in 1992 by David Mellor, and subsequently under changing names, it has been run by no less than 22 politicians, usually on the way, quite soon, to somewhere else.

It should have been easy money to predict that by today we would be into the 23rd Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport.

It is said that Lisa Nandy said goodbye to her staff on Monday and that, as she had an afternoon appointment with the prime minister, she was obviously on the move.

As a long-term friend and political associate of Burnham with an adjoining Greater Manchester constituency, she was never going to be sacked. Surely she was a cast-iron candidate for promotion.

It must therefore have come as a shock when the PM wisely opted for a rare piece of continuity for a refugee department and sent her back to complete her work, particularly on the future of the BBC.

As culture secretary, Nandy started poorly, began to improve, and actually started doing things before finally getting close to mastering her brief. In return for agreeing to stay, she may have asked for, and got, the support needed to ensure that one of the world’s leading public service broadcasters is properly financed for the future.

The threats facing the BBC are overwhelming and obvious

Never was a properly financed UK public service broadcaster more necessary in the face of international streamers and online entertainers with less than half a care for providing reliable information.  

The issue could scarcely be more pressing with ITV, the broadcaster, about to follow Channel 5 into American ownership, leaving Channel 4 increasingly isolated.

Then there is the equally serious matter that, while 93% of households use BBC services, only 80% pay the licence fee.

Ultimately that is an unsustainable position, particularly if the number of non-payers were to accelerate.

There are now at least three powerful individuals who fully understand the importance of the BBC in strengthening local culture across all the nations and regions of the UK. They must also have a sense of the BBC’s importance in underwriting large parts of one of the UK’s most important sectors – the creative industries.

Those three are obviously Andy Burnham, James Purnell and Lisa Nandy.

For the BBC, and indeed Channel 4, much of the heavy lifting, moving away from London and into the regions, has already been done. There are strong BBC operations in Manchester, Cardiff, Glasgow, Belfast and Bristol, although more devolution may be sought in return for a financing deal.

Nandy, and possibly Burnham and Purnell, must understand by now that there is only one possible solution that meets the need for a universal public service broadcaster, just as we have universal health and education services.

Every household should contribute just as everyone pays for education whether they have children or not, and support hospitals even if they are totally healthy.

Once such a principle is accepted, two interesting possibilities come into view.

It could become a fairer “licence fee,” tiered to ensure the poorest pay less, perhaps linked to council tax principles.

Second, if everyone, or a much higher percentage of people, begin to pay, the overall level could even be reduced, depending on the extent of tiering involved.

It would be a radical and hopefully fairer final solution to an endlessly recurring headache.

The three culture secretaries know that such an outcome would make sense even though the shameless Daily Mail would scream like a stuck pig at the idea.

It has already done that to welcome Burnham to Downing Street with a poll asking whether the PM’s rise to power has been “legitimate.”

The paper concluded that Andy Burnham faced “an extraordinary crisis of legitimacy” as he entered Downing Street backed up by percentages around the UK who think that “Andy Burnham’s coronation is illegitimate.”

The percentages ranged from a high of 49% in Scotland to a low of 26% in Northern Ireland, with London on 29%.

Dictionary definition of “illegitimate?”

Something not authorised by law, not in accordance with accepted rules,” is the answer. 

You may not like the way Burnham moved against Sir Keir Starmer, or carried out an extraordinarily ruthless purge of  Starmer’s main Cabinet allies. But politics is a tough business.

What is clear is that Labour party rules and British electoral practice were carried out to the letter and that, as a result, the prime ministership of Andy Burnham is entirely legitimate.

Under the UK system of government, the Sovereign appoints the person with the numbers to form a Government as prime minister, and Burnham has those numbers in spades. 

It might be unfortunate that Labour members did not get to choose, but no other MP had enough support in the Commons to even mount a challenge.

Again entirely legitimate.

And while the paper screams for an early General Election, it was not quite so enthusiastic in the case of previous “unelected” Conservative PMs

By way of contrast, The Times has been entirely factual and fair while correctly asking questions about what a Burnham government would actually do to back up the rhetoric.

There was even some praise, if a little tart at times, in the main Times leader, noting that Burnham had retained the services of rational actors in his Cabinet.

While the Daily Mail rages about the “Messiah Without A Mandate”, The Times concluded on Andy Burnham’s Cabinet picks: “Sensible choices in the main so far. The good has been retained; the departed will not be missed”.

Raymond Snoddy is a media consultant, national newspaper columnist and former presenter of NewsWatch on BBC News. He writes for The Media Leader on Wednesdays — bookmark his column here.