An American friend described modern Britain to me as “a health service with a nuclear deterrent.” This is unfair. Modern Britain is a health service with a nuclear deterrent, and also the BBC . President Donald Trump ‘s threat to sue Britain’s state broadcaster for $1 billion for its “reckless disregard for the truth” could, if carried out, mean the end of the British state as we know it.

“Knowledge is power,” wrote Francis Bacon, a servant of the Elizabethan and Jacobean states. In our age, agglomerated information is power. The BBC does not just exploit its privileges, notably a mandatory license fee, to deform Britain’s media market and police its domestic debate. “Auntie,” as the British are instructed to call her, is more than a nanny state of mind. She deploys her state su

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