The slip-ups and car-crash interviews of Nadine Dorries, the secretary of state for culture, such as her reference to “downstreaming” films, provide regular fodder for satirists and social media users alike, but the problem is that these clips are distractions from the real substance of what she is doing – and the privatisation of Channel 4 is no joke.
Privatisation in some form has been mooted about half a dozen times since the channel’s launch in 1982, but no one has managed to get as close as this government, which is pressing ahead with its sale. There are doubts over whether it will have the political backing to pass the legislation required to sell off the broadcaster, but Dorries is defending the plans, not by the brilliance of her argument, but by being less than entirely clear about the facts.
