THE knives seem to be out for the BBC – big time.

With its Charter up for review, the Government has immediately waded in, to suggest the corporation should be “narrower and more focused.” Essentially that means it should ditch popular entertainment and concentrate on news, documentaries and major dramas

There are things about the BBC that madden me. Intrusive background music. Overkill in presenting – sending out star newsreaders to head up stories that could be reported perfectly well by journalists already on the spot. The corporation’s complete abandonment of cricket, even of meagre highlights, really is an abdication of responsibility to what is still a much-followed national sport.

But overall the BBC is a beacon of excellence. Radio 4, with its wonderful variety, ranging from comedy through the likes of science and consumer affairs to poetry, a daily play and philosophical discussion, is among the finest features of our public life.

It says something about the independence of the BBC that politicians of all shades lose little opportunity to snipe at it. They hate its pursuit of truth, amid the smokescreen of half-truths and downright lies they habitually put up to conceal it.

Quite why it is argued the BBC should drop its popular programming, symbolised by successes like Strictly and Bake Off, is hard to see. It’s true that other channels can and do make similar programmes. But since the BBC’s record is as good as any, why should it shed that part of its output?

The danger is that removing popular programmes will marginalise the BBC more generally. If only through the ‘inheritance factor’ – viewers staying tuned after watching a favourite programme - its news bulletins would be less watched. The licence fee would become ever harder to justify.

There might now be hundreds of TV channels, but, of the dozens offered to me on Freeview, I watch no more than five or six. And a couple of those, Yesterday and Drama, show only repeats, very often of what first appeared on BBC. Whatever its faults, the BBC represents high quality broadcasting across a range of programmes unmatched by any rival. Why would you want to sacrifice that?

MUCH ado about very little – the Queen’s apparent Nazi salute at the age of seven back in 1933. The Nazi atrocities were not exposed – perhaps not even begun. Though the horrors were fully known after the war, the phrase Heil Hitler was nevertheless commonplace among boys at the time – myself among them. I don’t recall it being accompanied by a salute, but it’s hard to think it wasn’t.

The real issue with the footage of the Queen is how it came to be published by The Sun. Even if it had been unknowingly released with other material, the original recipient was not The Sun, which therefore might have been expected to contact the Palace over such sensitive material.

NINE months after British troops withdrew from Helmand province in Afghanistan the situation there is as bad as could be. The Taliban are back and opium production, which our troops arrived to stop, is higher than ever. The town of Musa Qala, where 21 British soldiers died, is about the fall into Taliban hands. “Everyone lives in fear now,” says tribal leader. What a waste of life – an unmitigated disaster.