Headlines we thought we'd never see: "Why the Mail stands shoulder to shoulder with the BBC". It seems that the most reliable of BBC attack dogs has finally found a reason to defend the BBC. If there is one thing the Mail hates more than than Auntie's softies ("monstrous bureaucracy", "unthinking profligacy", "manifold editorial misjudgments", "all-pervading soft-Left bias") it is the prospect of Ofcom regulation. Or, as the Mail describes Ed Richard's fiefdom: "That nest of politically correct Blairites." The prospect of NAO having financial oversight of the BBC, and reporting into MPs on the public accounts committee, is also anathema (On PAC members: "vanity, partisan agendas and propensity to bear grudges"). The BBC Trust's Lord Patten also gets both barrels ("smugly blasé, pink-tinged and utterly useless") and the Mail spends more than a few paragraphs railing against the size of the corporation in the market. "But where the freedom of the media and the public's right to know are at stake, political control can never be the answer," says the Mail in summary. "We value the independence of the BBC as highly as our own". Now that's been said, expect normal service to be resumed.
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