Ben Bradshaw is not a politician to whom I naturally warm. However. Maybe because he once worked for the BBC, he seems to have a knack for highlighting the problems of the Corporation, without speaking in the mid-Atlantic managerese of Murdoch Junior, whose final word in his Edinburgh speech was PROFIT.

Quite correctly he has pointed to the anti-democratic threat represented by the BBC's regional news programmes, which will kill off not only local newspapers, but also any incentives to create local broadcast rivals. He has also attacked the absurdity of the BBC Trust, which simulataneously lobbies for, and regulates, the Corporation.

I doubt whether this will rally many of the BBC's army of critics to Labour's side, but I wonder why the Tories aren't either endorsing him, or taking the criticism further? If Hunt and Vaizey are not up for this, then what about replacing them with Nick Cohen or Rod Liddle?