Suppose the government introduced a new tax of £157 a year for the right to go shopping.

If you want to visit any shop, in person or online, then you have to pay that sum to Tesco, regardless of what shop you happen to visit.

Imagine they also have vans parked outside supermarkets using facial recognition technology to check that everyone going in has paid the tax.

We’d all consider that outrageous, wouldn’t we? Yet it’s exactly that kind of arrangement the new Tory-appointed director general of the BBC has called the ‘least worst’ funding option for his newly acquired corporation.

The system is immoral yet the Tory government, which heavily hinted before the election that they would address this scandal, has now let the mask slip. They will not touch this issue and we will be forced to continue paying for biased woke lectures whether we watch them or not for years to come.

With an 80-seat majority the Tories can get away with anything. So given they don’t like the BBC, why are they still protecting its gravy train?

Dr Scott Marmion, Woodthorpe, York