The pioneering spirit of the BBC is far from dead

I had a phone call from someone at the BBC the other day. Someone quite high up. Obviously, I can't reveal his name. It's bad enough to reveal that I have been talking to someone at the BBC. Oh, all right, I'll tell you his name. It's Bad Faith. Obviously, that's not his real name. It's just his code name. But security is so tight at the BBC these days that they all have code names there. Some of them can't remember their real names any more...

"Hello, Hack Writer," he said.

That's the code name he's given me. I don't actually want a code name. I am happy to be called by my real name. But he can't understand that. As I said, everyone is very jumpy at the BBC these days.

"What's new?" I said.

"There is something so very new and so very exciting happening at the BBC that after I tell you what it is, I am going to deny I ever said it to you."

"Not that you have said it, as yet."

"It is so sensational that I am denying that I am about to say it to you."

"Goodness, Bad Faith," I said. "It sounds really good."

"It is," he said. "It isn't often that you have a piece of news so good you can hardly bear to leak it."

"That's exciting."

"It certainly is."

I could tell that my BBC source was really excited because he had gone straight into the conversation without pouring scorn on his superiors at the BBC, which is one of the two mandatory ways of starting a BBC conversation, the other being to pour scorn on a colleague's programme.

"You know that the BBC has often been described recently as the nearest thing to an opposition that the government has got ?" he said.

I said I did. I may even have been guilty of it myself.

"It has been decided at the very highest level in the BBC that we should turn this from a metaphor into a reality."

"Meaning?"

"Meaning? Meaning that as from now, the BBC intends to put up candidates at all elections, standing as The Real Opposition."

"That's unthinkable," I said, without thinking.

"Not at all," he said. "We are being treated as an opposition. We are being insulted, attacked, disbelieved and scorned, just as the Tories used to be. So we might as well capitalise on it."

"Can you imagine a BBC person standing for Parliament?" I said. "How could it ever happen? Who would vote for him?"

"Think of Martin Bell," he said.

I thought of Martin Bell.

"Gosh," I said.

"We have gone into this very carefully," he said. "Not everyone likes the BBC, but they like us a lot better than the lot in 10 Downing Street. We consistently poll better than HMG on every aspect of public life - accountability, credibility, visibility, openness and viewer choice. How can you resist the idea of an opposition which regularly outperforms the Government ?"

"What would you call yourself ?" I said.

"Ah ha!" he said. "That shows you're taking the idea seriously already! And don't forget that we have a huge experience of running a vast organisation with a big budget. And that schools, hospitals, crime and so on are nothing new to us - we make programmes about them every day."

"Would Jeremy Paxman stand for election ?" I said.

"We certainly have an outstanding roll-call of politically astute personalities who would be a draw to the voter," said Bad Faith. "It would be very tempting to use some of them as our opposition candidates."

I was impressed by the way he had avoided answering the question altogether. He was obviously taking politics seriously.

"And if the unthinkable happened, and you were voted into office, what would the BBC do as the next government? Would you for instance fire John Birt as a poitical adviser?"

Bad Faith chuckled.

"The BBC is not a vindictive body," he said. "We are happy to let John Birt remain in deep obscurity. We do however have plans for redeploying Alastair Campbell to suit his talents."

"To do what?"

He chuckled again.

"To let him take over The Weakest Link from Anne Robinson."

More of this sensational stuff some other time. Meanwhile, if anyone cares to suggest who they think Bad Faith is, I will indicate whether they are right or not.