MARK Thomson doesn't, at first blush, look like an obvious King Lear. If you were casting the Shakespearean monarch you wouldn't have the BBC Director General, with his gentle features and thoughtful mien, as your first choice. But the man who heads
Britain's, indeed the world's, most influential news organisation, has more than a touch of the tragic monarch about him today.
He has been pilloried for spending £100 on a bottle of champagne to mark Bruce Forsyth's 80th birthday, criticised for claiming the costs incurred when he cut short holidays to deal with various crises at the corporation, and attacked for not revealing even more about the remuneration and rewards enjoyed by the BBC's top talent.
For the man who stands at the pinnacle of our most powerful journalistic enterprise to find himself the object of such scrutiny has more than a touch of irony about it. "Blow wind and crack your cheeks!" declaims Lear on the blasted heath in Shakespeare's play, as he calls on the forces of nature to do their worst. The cleansing blast of freedom of information legislation has been billowing through the corridors of power for some time now, with the BBC's own journalists often at the forefront of those urging that the cobwebbed secrecy of the past be swept away. But now those same winds are blowing through the corporation's corridors. And leading to criticism and controversy in the process.
Of course there's more than a touch of irony in any politician touching on the subject of how public money has been spent. After revelations about our expenses we have a formidable job of work to do in restoring public trust. But there should be no complaint about the principle that the public has a right to know where its money goes. Whether its the range of taxes agreed by MPs, or the flat tax imposed on anyone who owns a TV, citizens hand over money to public institutions by law. And they have a right, in law, to know how that money is used.
At the moment, the BBC is defending a line by which it will reveal the details of expenses and the broad salary bands of senior executives but not the precise amount paid to broadcast talent. There are understandable reasons why the BBC does not want to go further. But, like King Lear negotiating with his daughters to have 100 knights accompany him after his abdication, only to find that he ends up literally defenceless, the BBC is arguing for a position which may be reasonable to some, but which is ultimately not going to prevail. Just as the logic of Lear giving up the throne meant he yielded all power, so the logic of freedom of information means that you give up the ability to decide what information is withheld from the public. Sooner or later, in a court of law or in the court of public opinion, the information the BBC is currently holding back will be prised from its hands.
And talking of the courts, it's important to bear in mind that no public institution is, or will be, immune from the reach of freedom of information requests. Whether it's the accommodation costs incurred by circuit judges, down to the last cheese biscuit, or the amounts run up by quango chiefs, down to the last ticking taxi bill, we will all have the right to scrutinise how every penny is spent.
And there is a powerful public interest in such scrutiny. At the moment it's still the case that far too much detail about how the government deploys your cash is kept secret. Major contracts with suppliers of public goods are kept cloaked by considerations of "commercial confidentiality". That's why, for instance, despite my asking repeatedly for it to be published, none of us have been able to see the contract signed with the firm which made such a comprehensive botch-up of last year's Sats tests in England. And so an organisation which was responsible for an utter shambles can still walk away having taken millions from the exchequer, without our knowing if we have got the best possible recompense for the taxpayer.
The Obama administration has pledged to put details of all significant items of federal expenditure online, and the Conservatives have pledged to follow suit here, so the public can scrutinise procurement decisions to make sure we are getting the best deal possible.
Promoting such richly informed debate about government action should generate not just cheaper, but better, government. And promoting truly informed debate is what all democrats should want. Which brings me back to the BBC. Whatever one thinks of its top talent's Krug habits, the corporation provides the places where searching and serious debate takes place in our national life. From Today to Any Questions, Newsnight to Newsround, it's the BBC which sets the standard for serious public discourse. And, in so many other ways, from its coverage of classical music to its production of historical drama, it performs an invaluable, irreplaceable public service. The debate we're having about the BBC's finances needs to be informed by an appreciation of just how much it enriches our public life. In the end, those who denude King Lear of everything he once relied on replace a civilised court with a pain-wracked realm.
Yes, the BBC needs to ensure it spends wisely. And certainly it needs to ensure its access to public money does not, as it has in the past, lead to worthwhile competitors being bludgeoned out of the marketplace. But as one who learned his Shakespeare, and so much more, from the BBC, I hope that in the process of ensuring we get better value for public money we don't forget the value of public service broadcasting.
