Labour says government's attack on BBC a bid to stop PM becoming ‘dead meat'

The government has been accused of launching an attack on the BBC to distract from the Partygate scandal and stop Boris Johnson becoming “dead meat”.

- ADAM FORREST

Culture minister Nadine Dorries told the Commons yesterday that the BBC’s funding would be frozen for the next two years, and confirmed that the “long-term” future of the current licence fee model was in doubt.

Labour’s shadow culture secretary Lucy Powell said the announcement – reportedly part of Downing Street’s “Operation Red Meat” moves to please Conservative supporters – was designed “to stop the prime minister becoming dead meat”.

The Labour frontbencher accused Tory ministers of a “long-term vendetta” against the BBC, and said the attack was “a really obvious, pathetic distraction from a prime minister and a government who has run out of road”.

Ms Dorries told MPs that the BBC had asked for the fee to rise to over £180 by the end of the current settlement, but said it will instead be frozen at £159 until April 2024, before rising with inflation for the following four years.

On Sunday the culture secretary had tweeted that this year’s licence fee funding announcement – which takes the BBC up until the end of its current charter in 2027 – “will be the last”.