Hair shirt is the political order of the day. Trimming leisure sites on the web is a good gesture, Mark Thompson should more than halve his salary or quit, but it must stop there. Losing BBC 6 – which is cheap and unique – is a bad mistake. The BBC is not in competition: it belongs to the citizens at the cost of a mere copy of the Sun a day. The commercial world must just navigate around it. It’s Murdoch’s agenda to shrink it to programmes no-one else would broadcast. Labour made a bad in error in suggesting top-slicing the licence fee. The less good original commercial TV, the more we need the BBC, not less.
Polly Toynbee
38 Degrees members have been campaigning to stand up for the BBC ever since James Murdoch laid his cards on the table last August. Thousands and thousands of us have come together this week to oppose the cuts. The public love the BBC, we don’t want to see it shrunk just to please its corporate rivals. 38 Degrees will be in this campaign for the long haul: get involved today by signing the petition
David Babbs, 38 Degrees