ABSTRACT
For most of the BBC’s existence, the principle of ‘public service’ embodied in the 1926 Charter had not been the special preserve of the Corporation. Indeed, the idea that some organisations should operate for the public good and at the public expense was shared by all political parties, as well as the leaders of private industry and commerce, and ordinary voters. In the 1980s, however, the idea was strongly challenged for the first time. For broadcasters who had taken ‘public service’ for granted, life suddenly became uncomfortable. One problem was the issue of political independence. Institutions like the BBC, whose raison d’être included the principle of impartiality, are never at ease with very ideological governments. Their distress becomes acute when there is only one party in office for a protracted period. In the case of public service broadcasting, it needs the threat of potential opposition power as a sabre to rattle warningly at governments. Yet, as the Conservative Party won one election after another from 1979 onwards, British politics became increasingly one-party rule. Indeed, the emergence of a coherent, highly ideological project for the transformation of British politics and society after 1982 put the BBC even more under threat.
