Brian Reade says scrapping the TV licence will leave the BBC at the mercy of the Tory party. He adds that when Tory politicians need to woo the populist vote they threaten to make the BBC pay for itself

As far as the right is concerned the BBC has always been the Great Distractor.

When foreign-based newspaper barons want to rail against the evils of liberal elites they home in on the leftie BBC. When Tory politicians need to woo the populist vote they threaten to make the Bloated Beeb pay for itself.

The last time Boris Johnson played this hand was during the 2019 General Election when he was attacked for refusing, while on-screen, to look at a Daily Mirror front page showing a sick four-year-old on an A&E floor.

Within hours he was threatening to scrap the TV licence.

And now, as he sups in the Last Chance Saloon, hes sent out his pom-pom swinging fangirl Nadine Dorries to tell BBC bosses she has their testicles in a vice. Thats the laughably titled culture secretary who believes taxpayers fund Channel 4 and probably thinks Lord Reith is something a peer lays at the Cenotaph.

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Tories like to pretend they are in favour of public service broadcasting, so long as it can be bent to their will. But what would it look like if they ran the stripped-down BBC today.

Here, Im guessing, would be the highlights: the day opens with a recording of Vera Lynn singing God Save The Queen and is followed by Wake-Up Dont Woke-Up presented by Esther McVey in the Downing Street TV studio with Julia Hartley-Brewer reviewing all papers except the Mirror and Guardian.

CBeebies flagship show is Watch With Nanny in which Jacob Rees-Moggs nanny plays the penny whistle as his children, dressed in naval uniform, recite important dates from the Napoleonic Wars.

Antiques Roadshow is revamped, with Bernard Ingham catching up with the latest views from local Conservative associations. As is Upstairs, Downstairs in which Rishi Sunak tells us what its like to live in a stately home during an energy crisis and how to cut off the heating in the servants quarters.

On The Travel Show, Mark Francois lists things to do when stuck in three-hour passport queues in Europe due to Brexit, and Dominic Raab gives tips on how to ignore your mobile while relaxing on a Corfu sunbed as Kabul falls.

In Flog It! think-tanks update us on ways to privatise the NHS and EastEnders becomes WestEnders, a story of First World problems in Fulham and Chelsea.

On Jobsearch, Nadine Dorries herself explains how you can get your daughters on the public payroll and Matt Hancock shows how to give multi-million pound contracts to the bloke down the pub.

Grandstand returns with polo, croquet and fox-hunting with a shower of Berkeley Hunts, and foodies are served Trusss Kitchen Nightmares, where the foreign secretary advises on how to cope when you run out of British cheese.

Theres Dragons Den Does Dover in which Priti Patel hears contestants pitch new ways to repel migrants and Hospital will show the NHS in a fresh light, with no A&E queues and staff delighted with their workload.

Comedy-wise theres Mock The Weak in which Jim Davidson and Roy Chubby Brown openly humiliate minorities, and Would I Lie To You? sees Boris Johnson do a weekly press conference.

And each day closes at midnight with Land of Dope and Tory played from a model of the new royal yacht.

Unless youve put your foot through your telly hours before and gone to bed, that is.

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'Public service Beeb saves us all from a Land of Dope and Tory' - Mirror.co.uk