A meeting of mind (in the BBC's defence)

Good news! The former editor of The Guardian and the present editor of the Times Literary Supplement agree to agree (isn't that lovely?):

Alan Rusbridger: BBC is due to celebrate its centenary in 2022. Quite easily - still - one of the most trusted institutions in Britain, if not the world. But apparently Dominic Cummings doesn’t like it, so, whatever.
Stig Abell: The problem is that it is hard to argue that the funding model is not anachronistic. If the BBC were to be invented today, it would not be funded by a licence on televisions. It is a small step to ignore the fact that state-supported broadcasting fills an essential function.
Alan Rusbridger: Agree. So we need to shore up the “essential function” argument and make people realise that is impossible if the BBC is essentially privatised.
Stig Abell: And the BBC needs to shore it up too.
Alan Rusbridger: True.