● 14
July 1996 -
Robert Harris joins the attack on the BBC in the Sunday Times.
● 14 January 1999 - Leo McKinstry
(Daily Mail), a former Labour
Councillor now regular columnist, savages the BBC licence fee.
● 20 July 1999 - Janet Daley in the Daily
Telegraph attacks BBC bias on Europe during the European elections campaign.
● 14
March 2001
- Boris Johnson MP (Daily Telegraph)
- cut the licence fee.
● 12
February 2002
- Brian Sewell (Evening Standard) -
Licence fee is absurd, unfair, unpopular and unjustifiable.
● 4
March 2002
- Melanie Philips (Daily Mail) - BBC
has lost its right to the licence fee.
● 11 March 2002 - Lord Pearson of Rannoch - the BBC has been good enough to admit that
it was disgracefully biased in favour of the "Yes" campaign in the 1975 Referendum.
● 26
August 2002
- New Statesman - the licence fee is
a totem for the Guardian-reading,
public-sector-and-professions-based "liberal" establishment which dominates the formulation of polite opinion - kill
the licence fee.
● 3
November 2002
- Jonathan Miller challenges BBC funding under Article 10 of the ECHR.
● 5
January 2003
- Michael Dobbs (author of "House of Cards") - the BBC kept Churchill off the radio in the 1930s.
● 9
February 2003
- Barry Cox, Deputy Chairman of Channel 4
and a friend of Tony Blair, described the BBC as a "cultural tyranny" and said the licence fee should be
axed.
● 9
February 2003
- John Whittingdale MP (Shadow Secretary of State for
Culture and Heritage) says in the Sunday
Times that the licence fee is not sacrosanct.
● 15 July 2003 - a Labour dominated
Commons Committee accused the Corporation of broadcasting biased news coverage
and failing to control staff.
●
26 July 2003 - Conrad Black (Daily Telegraph)
- the BBC is the greatest menace facing the country and a bigger enemy to the
Conservatives and all they believe in than the Labour government.
●
18 January 2004 - The IPPC, a Blairite think-tank called for radical reform of the BBC,
including abolishing the licence fee.
●
13 January 2007 - Charles Moore (Daily Telegraph) - it is time for a big
political party to argue for the abolition of the licence fee.
● 6
May 2010 -
Stephen Glover (Daily Mail) - for
days the BBC has been talking up the LibDems. But
then we should never underestimate their hatred of the Tories.
● 1
November 2010
- Sun editorial - it (the BBC) is
ready to bend the facts in a relentless propaganda war against the government.
● 10
December 2011
- Sir Anthony Jay (co-creator of Yes
Minister) - called for a dramatic downsizing of the bias-ridden BBC, saying
it has simply been too powerful.
● 12
November 2012
- Frederick Forsyth (Daily Express) - the BBC has never been neutral on anything.