The BBC has scuppered a Tory manifesto pledge and the political cost could be massive

By cutting universal free TV for over-75s, the corporation is openly taking on the government's spending decisions and capitalising on its internal strife. But the real harm is the trust the Tories will lose from their elderly voters

The David Cameron playbook for winning elections had two golden rules. Bang on about the economy and the deficit as much as possible. And don’t do anything that might upset pensioners – to you and me, the people who tend to comprise the Tory voter base.

Theresa May arguably missed her chance in 2017 because she barely talked about the first, and raised the prospect of old people losing their homes with her dementia tax. Two years on and in the dying days of her afflicted premiership, we hear the news the BBC are going to scrap free TV licences for almost four million over-75s.

Fresh from the 2015 general election victory, then chancellor George Osborne told the BBC it would be expected to pick up the bill for providing free TV licences as part of their cuts programme. The Treasury would no longer cover the tab. At the time, part of his reasoning was the search for savings would see the BBC cutback its online presence, allowing more space for commercial rivals – coincidentally and disproportionately right wing, Conservative-supporting newspapers – to plug their revenue gaps from falling circulation with more page views and ad clicks to their websites.

Furthermore, in an attempt to recoup income there was the suggestion the BBC would increase its commercial operations, something the then Conservative government saw as a moral good in and of itself, and which would then happily ensure a core constituent of the Tory voter coalition would continue to enjoy fee-free television.

This change, agreed between the BBC and the government as part of its licence settlement was due to be phased in last year, and be fully taken over by the broadcaster by 2020-21. What has happened? The BBC have, it appears unilaterally scrapped their agreement. Rather than fund all licences for over 75s, it has made a commitment to meet its obligation only to households receiving pensions credit. In other words, the least well off.

Naturally, Labour have proven quick to attack the removal of the benefit, with deputy leader Tom Watson criticising the government. While it was a Conservative Party manifesto pledge in 2017, incredibly the government are washing their hands of the decision and saying the prime minister is “very disappointed” with the BBC.

What has happened is the government of 2015 imposed a huge obligation on the BBC, and one it would struggle to meet, but in 2019, so riddled with Brexit-related strife, the government is weak to the point that the BBC feels it can push back on the agreement.

At the time, Osborne calculated that any future decisions it would make about the benefit would have politically neutral effects. After all, it is not the government making life hard for pensioners but dear old Auntie. Nevertheless, the BBC’s announcement is surely much earlier than the former chancellor anticipated. And so we have an appearance of an institution openly taking on the government, and implicitly attacking its spending decisions.

If the Cameron plan had stayed on track, the EU referendum won, and the victors, if not the political certainties, of early 2015 remained in place it is doubtful the BBC would have moved so quickly to scupper a Tory manifesto pledge. As things stand with the prime minister half-way out the door and leadership contenders absorbed in bashing their rivals, the eventual victor faces the double whammy of piloting Brexit through the Commons with only a minority of MPs behind them.

Not unreasonably it appears the BBC have calculated they will not have the political energy or bandwidth to slap them back down, let alone enter into further talks to sort Osborne’s funding mess out.

Meanwhile, the message it sends to the people Cameron once pledged to spare from the cuts after a lifetime of contributing is clearly not helpful, from a party point of view. One of the reasons why older people are more likely to vote for conservative and centre right parties is because they stress the old certainties. They offer the promise of security in a fast moving world, and often support relatively generous welfare entitlements for the elderly.

This is something more than simple bribery: if your income is fixed and, in a lot of cases, modest, you need to have certainty. The removal of the universal free licence for the over 75s not only adds costs, albeit one most pensioners could absorb, it can cultivate a broad sense of anxiety. If the government are coming for this, what next?

Ultimately, it does not matter whether the BBC is responsible or not. It was a Conservative pledge to keep the licence free, and it is a Conservative government who will oversee the promise pulled. It might only amount to a few pounds a month, but the political costs to the Tories are not so easy to estimate.