Free Republic

Downing Street is threatening the future of the BBC by insisting it is seriously considering decriminalising non-payment of the licence fee, while boycotting Radio 4’s Today programme over the broadcaster’s supposed anti-Tory bias. No 10 pulled ministers from Saturday’s edition of the Today programme and sources said it intended to “withdraw engagement” from the show in future. ***** During the election campaign, Johnson threatened to take the BBC’s licence fee away as he called into question its status as a publicly funded broadcaster. The prime minister suggested the licence fee, which is guaranteed to continue until at least 2027, was...

In a shock result, Karl Marx has been voted the greatest ever philosopher following a poll by Melvyn Bragg's Radio 4 show In Our Time. In the public's poll, which assessed 20 philosophers, Marx, author of the Communist Manifesto and Das Kapital, got 27.93% of the 30,000 votes. In second place came David Hume with 12.67%, followed by Ludwig Wittgenstein with 6.8%. Plato trailed in fifth place and Socrates at eighth. Andrew Chitty, who, at Sussex University, teaches the UK's only MA in Marxist philosophy, said: "This shows that philosophy should take Marxism seriously. It is possible he won because...

Last Updated: Thursday, 17 July, 2003, 20:43 GMT 21:43 UK Journalist accused over dossier story BBC reporter Andrew Gilligan has been accused of changing his story when giving evidence to MPs over his report that No 10 "sexed up" an Iraqi weapons dossier. The BBC stands by Gilligan's reporting of his source The Radio 4 Today programme defence correspondent appeared before the Foreign Affairs Committee in private to again discuss his allegations against Downing Street press chief Alastair Campbell. Committee chairman Donald Anderson said: "Mr Gilligan clearly changed his mind in the course of the evidence, in particular in relation...