In five years’ time, the BBC license fee — the broadcaster’s major source of income for almost a century — will be abolished. At least that’s the declared intention of Boris Johnson’s Conservative government. Last month, culture secretary Nadine Dorries briefed the press that the license fee would not be renewed after 2027, when the BBC’s current Royal Charter expires. An anonymous ally was quoted proclaiming that “the days of state-run TV are over.”

This was met with some alarm, but also by a degree of indifference or even schadenfreude among some on the Left who have grown disillusioned with BBC news coverage, and with good reason. Others dismissed the announcement as a classic “dead cat,” also with good reason. Despite presiding over a chaotic period of social murder with 140,000 COVID-19 deaths in England alone, support for Johnson’s government had until recently proven surprisingly resilient. In recent months, however, it has experienced a polling collapse and a serious loss of political authority following a series of revelations, most damagingly of Downing Street staff holding parties during lockdown.

As commentators began to speculate about Johnson’s departure, it was widely reported that he planned to rally support through a series of right-wing policy announcements known as “Operation Red Meat.” Abolishing the BBC license fee was top of the list. This was unsurprising: Johnson’s government had briefed plans for abolition shortly after the 2019 election, telling the Murdoch-owned Sunday Times that it would force the BBC onto a subscription model and dramatically downsize its operations. While not much came of this early fighting talk, it was followed by an announcement that the government was considering decriminalizing nonpayment of the license fee — a transparent attempt to further reduce the BBC’s income.