Boris Johnson and the BBC

Via EU Referendum and Christopher Booker's Telegraph column I learn that Mayor Boris is calling for the next BBC supremo to be a Tory:

The Mayor of London insists the corporation, which is funded by the taxpayer, must be run by someone who is “free-market” and “pro-business”.

Boris, chum, I'm sure you mean well, but try to think things through. You need to be consistent. If you believe in free markets, follow the logic, apply that logic to the BBC. It cannot be changed from what it is by sticking some smart Alec free-trade Tory in the big chair (supposing you could find a free-trade Tory), any more than you can change a pack of wolves by appointing Larry the Lamb as the alpha male.

A BBC spokeswoman said: "BBC News is committed to impartiality and we reject Boris Johnson's assertions of bias.

I'd laugh but I'm snarling too much. Cutting to the chase; the BBC must be smashed. It is a propaganda machine, funded by coercion, cranking out disinformation for the benefit of the establishment (e.g. in its 'coverage' of the war on Libya). It cannot be expected to be impartial, when it is part of the Leviathan state. It has influence which Murdoch at his height could only dream of. It is not needed and it never was needed, any more than a government-run newspaper, funded through a tax on reading.

The fact that it has produced some good programmes over the years does not change its essential illegitimacy. If people love it so much, and I don't doubt many do, then they will continue to support it, once it is prevented from using the violence of the state to enforce its monopoly power.

As for the new Director General, I nominate Sean Gabb.