The UK authorities is, in lots of, methods fairly a diverting comedy: Partygate, tractorgate (watching porn in Parliament), bloodcurdling noises from a nakedly formidable overseas secretary over Ukraine, echoed by a PM who appears to suppose poking the Russian bear is an effective distraction from issues at house.

However a few of these issues (not least the latter) may very well injury the nation and we’ll cease seeing the joke.

The Authorities’s resolution to press forward with privatising Channel 4 is one such, Tradition Secretary Nadine Dorries (one other politician you’d by no means count on to see anyplace close to a Cupboard desk) goes forward with the barmy and vindictive scheme, regardless of 96% of respondents to the Authorities’s faux ‘session’ being agin it.

It could by no means occur, after all, because it will get slowed down in Parliament and, very doubtless, authorized challenges. C4 has added gasoline to the fireplace by reporting document advert revenues of £1.2bn in 2021, with a monetary surplus of £101m – record-breaking figures. If it ain’t broke…

It is usually promising to speculate tens of thousands and thousands in jobs exterior London and search non-public funding of as much as £1bn to do, what precisely? Not clear at this stage nevertheless it presumably includes the Authorities’s “levelling up” agenda, that’s extra fancy jobs exterior London.

Dorries, who different authorities ministers steer effectively away from, says she need to equip C4 for the “streaming age,” seemingly overlooking that the US streamers are shedding fistuls of cash. It’s close to certainty that there’ll be a spate in mergers in streaming as shareholders say sufficient is sufficient. The notion that C4 or, certainly, ITV, can compete on this shark-infested area on the similar degree is fanciful within the excessive.

C4’s succesful boss Alex Mahon does have work to do. Its programmes aren’t nice, by the requirements of its previous anyway. Nice British Bake Off was pinched from the BBC, Gogglebox is okay if that’s your factor however there has to a bit extra to it than these two.

However C4 is part of the UK media panorama that positively ought to have a preservation order on it – largely as it’s.