The jewels are not for sale.

Principles, ethics, democracy all describe a part of the human condition tied into our quest for becoming civilised.
But then there is another level of human endeavour which describes a more base attribute, intolerance, parochialism, greed and avarice
The fear in our unfettered political system is that when a political party wins an election , its ideology is relatively unassailable for the five year term. There are no checks and balances other than the vote of its members.
The man, John Whittingdale who the Prime Minister put in charge of challenging and changing the BBC has on record his opposition to certain fundamentals as to the way the BBC is run and funded.
The BBC is seen by the Conservatives as having a left wing bias (in other words in opposition to them) when it comes to politics, much like the Murdoch Empire has a right wing bias. One of the over riding reasons why there is supposed to be a guide in limiting the ownership of the press and television media is that without it, it puts too much power in the hands of one person who could sway the public with too much biased information.
Of course in a democracy you cannot prescribe to a privately owned company what it should and shouldn't do, so long as it within the law. A public company such as the BBC is not under such limitation and the government of the day can, not withstanding the Charter Agreements set up to protect the integrity of the BBC, interfere specifically through the funding arrangements of the licence fee.
A committee has been formed to examine the workings of this highly valued institution, highly valued not only in this country but world wide.
I say highly valued but of course there are many different types of people who make up a community and one is jolted out of ones presumption when people are interviewed. To many the wide ranging high quality program content is of no value since their needs are met by Sky Sport and its American produced entertainment format.
The cost of the Licence Fee which works out at a ridiculously low,10p a day and which also covers but is not acknowledged in the discussion, the radio output both national and local radio.
Competing and offsetting the Licence Fee is the income generated by the subscription package (Sky, Virgin, BT) to obtain the programs (substantially more than that of the Licence Fee) but added to the subscription package cost is that the program content is broken up by "advertising" which I once evaluated as being 40% of the viewing time per hour.
Are we mad to assume that we are equating a licence fee with a subscription when the program content is diminished by 40%.
There is also I would argue the damage perpetrated on an individual's mind with the highly targeted sales pitch repeated time and time again, often disingenuous but in a format designed to 'sublimate' the mind in what I would argue is an unethical practice. The "committee" is formed of the very people who have either an axe to grind or have a financial objective, that of eventually privatising the Beeb. There are no defenders of the Institution on the committee and clearly it's job is to demolish, in stages the values of this truly creative media organisation.
The Tories sense blood and with their election win they are out to radically change the landscape of what the British society has evolved into and stands for, its liberal values and humanitarian precepts mark us out in a world of diminishing values.
We must do all in our power to counter the Tory assault on the BBC.
We must bombard our parliamentarians with our views on this and on the other services such as the NHS which we hold dear in this country. It is the only force at our disposal (other than the barricades) but a political party can only survive on the vote and if we make our voice felt,  as repeatedly as the advertising media do to sell their product, we will have a similar success.