Now You Know Why They Kept The TV Licence

From the Guardian Media Diary

Naughty Naughtie
As the Tories cry foul (again) over supposed leftwing bias at the Beeb, the Today programme's James Naughtie is doing his employers no favours. Interviewing Ed Balls, former chief economic adviser to the Treasury, this morning, Naughtie began one question with "If we win the election..." before quickly correcting himself with "I mean you of course." Is there something we should be told?

Irritable Jowell Syndrome
Tessa was on Newsnight last night getting a grilling from Paxman about the license fee. He kept asking her why it was still needed and at one point she said, "Well if you were a Martian visiting, you might think it a bit strange".

Leaving aside the likelihood of Martians travelling millions of miles to earth just so that can study best practice in the funding of public service broadcasting, I couldn't help wondering why she didn't just turn to Paxo and say, "We have the license fee so you can have your enormous salary".