Big Dog was having a temper tantrum. He had been hiding out in Downing Street since Wednesday and all anyone was still talking about was the number of parties he had held and how long he could get away with lying about them. It’s just not fair, he had shouted at a member of staff. Why did everyone blame him for everyone in No 10 being pissed more often than not during lockdown when he was merely the person who had been in charge and let it all happen? It wasn’t his fault he was unable to see the difference between working and having a social event. Surely the person who warned him about the party on 20 May should have made a greater effort to get his message across?
“We need to move on,” he had said eventually. What was required was a secret plan. Or two secret plans. Operation Save Big Dog and Operation Red Meat. Secret plans that were so secret he was going to make sure everyone knew what they were. First off, he was going to sack however many members of staff were necessary for him to keep his job. Because that was the kind of threat that would be guaranteed to buy the loyalty of everyone in No 10.
And then he was going to offer up some policies he hoped would be catnip to both the rightwing press and the far right of his party. With any luck it would stop them writing letters of no confidence to Graham Brady. Big Dog might even get round to doing a bit of work after that. Then again, why break the habit of a lifetime?
Monday saw the plans go into action. At Home Office questions, Priti Patel declared she was going to set the navy on refugees trying to cross the Channel in inflatable boats. She didn’t quite say what she expected the navy to do about them. But hopefully it would find a way of pushing them back to France. Failing that, it could just sink them. A warm glow of pleasure passed through Priti Vacant’s veins as she thought of foreigners fighting for their lives in a gunmetal-grey sea. It was for moments like this that she lived. To be home secretary was very heaven.
Next up was Nadine Dorries who, having already announced her plan to freeze the BBC licence fee for two years and then discontinue it from 2028 in the Mail on Sunday and on Twitter, belatedly got round to informing parliament in a statement to the Commons. The BBC had quite enough money to be going on with, people were broke and the licence fee was an outdated business model.
Furthermore, it was about time the BBC learned to be a bit more impartial and stop reporting things that were damaging to the government. Stories about corruption and lying at the heart of government had no place in a national broadcaster’s reporting. And while the Beeb was about it, it should get out of its London bubble and stop showing programmes for the metropolitan elite. Shows like Strictly Come Dancing, Doctor Who, David Attenborough and Match of the Day. It was an outrage that no one from the BBC had ever bothered to adapt one of her third-rate books for television.
Labour’s Lucy Powell, the shadow culture secretary, wasn’t having any of this. This wasn’t a policy announcement so much as a minor distraction, to prevent Red Meat from becoming Dead Meat. While there should be no blank cheques for the BBC, this really wasn’t about the cost of living. If it was, then the government could have done more to help with energy price rises and tax increases. She could also have mentioned the £20 reduction in universal credit and the £4.3bn the government had written off in fraudulent Covid schemes.
So what did Nad expect the BBC to do? Just show repeats or cut its local journalism and regional programming? Or it could just dump its offering for children and Bitesize education? And as for linking the licence fee to editorial content of which the government approved, that was the kind of thing you would expect of a tinpot dicatorship.
Nad merely shrugged dismissively. Nobody was thinking of getting rid of the BBC, she said, merely thinking of ways to make it more like Big Dog wanted. Even though Big Dog had been very supportive of the BBC before he went into politics. And no, she hadn’t given a moment’s thought to what funding model might replace the licence fee. All she wanted to do was whip up a distraction by starting a discussion about the BBC’s future.
If Dorries had thought she was in for an easy ride from Tory backbenchers grateful for a chance to settle scores with the national broadcaster, she was in for a nasty surprise. Peter Bottomley, the father of the house, reckoned it was just petty to freeze the inflationary increases for the next two years.
Damian Green suggested that the least the government should be doing was maintain the licence fee till 2038, but Nad wasn’t having anything to do with it. As Tory after Tory got up to ask about nonprofitable parts of the BBC they admired, Nad became increasingly unhinged. It wasn’t until an hour in that she got unequivocal support from Jonathan Gullis, who declared the Beeb deserved to be dismantled because it hadn’t unequivocally supported Brexit. That’s more like it, Dorries cheered. Operation Red Meat was a success after all. Big Dog could relax. For one more day at least.
• John Crace will join a Guardian Live online event about the No 10 lockdown parties and Boris Johnson’s future this Wednesday, 19 January 2022, from 8pm-9pm GMT. Book here
