From Our Media Correspondent

Our Man With The Grubby Raincoat And A 10p Bic Writes:-

James Murdoch, the heir to his father Rupert’s global News Corporation empire, tonight accused the BBC of undertaking a “chilling” land-grab of the media that posed a “serious and imminent” threat to the future provision of news in Britain.

Murdoch junior, who is News Corp’s chairman and chief executive for Europe and Asia, warned that the dominance of the BBC risked creating the type of news media which George Orwell described in the novel 1984. “As Orwell foretold, to let the state enjoy a near-monopoly of information is to guarantee manipulation and distortion,” he said.

He's right, you know. What the BBC needs is urgent reform so that it can be as free from 'manipulation and distortion' as, say, 'The Sun'.