Will Dominic Cummings be able to replace the BBC with a British version of Fox News?

Dominic Cummings, the prime minister’s adviser, now holds so much power that 16-year-old stories about him are being excavated for clues about the direction of Boris Johnson’s policy.

The latest is a blog post from the New Frontiers Foundation, a think tank run by Cummings, in 2004. It said that the BBC’s credibility needed “undermining”; called for “the creation of a Fox News equivalent” to “shift the centre of gravity”; and urged “the end of the ban on TV political advertising”.

This is relevant in the light of Johnson’s difficult relationship with the BBC – he refuses to appear on the Today programme – the vacancy for director-general, and the doubts over the future of the licence fee.

Remember that Johnson hit the headlines during the election campaign by saying, in an apparently unplanned answer to a member of the public, that the question of abolishing the licence fee needs “looking at”.

It is usual for prime ministers to fall out with the BBC. Margaret Thatcher thought it was a left-wing organisation determined to undermine national security. Tony Blair was exonerated by a public inquiry when it accused him of “sexing up” the case for war in Iraq. And it was David Cameron who legislated for a delayed cut in BBC funding, by forcing it to pay for free TV licences for over-75s from June this year.

But it is rare for a prime minister to go to war with the BBC so early on in their time in No 10. It takes two sides to go to war, and the BBC is mobilising its forces in response. It has been suggested that David Clementi, the BBC chair, encouraged Tony Hall to retire early as director-general so that he, Clementi, could influence the choice of his successor. Otherwise, the new DG would be appointed by a new chair, who in turn would have been appointed by Johnson next year.

In the end, I suspect the threat to the BBC comes more from the cut in its funding and the shift towards internet streaming rather than aerial broadcasting. The BBC remains popular with the public, and any explicit attempt to “undermine” it would backfire on Johnson.

Anyone who has been to the US knows how terrible its TV is, and how Fox News in particular debases the political culture. However much people grumble about the licence fee, they recognise that the BBC helps to keep our media ecosystem relatively honest – and no one wants to see British politics dominated by big money, paying for TV advertising, as in the US.

In any case, the government and Dominic Cummings already have enough on their plate. Cummings’ ambitious plans to shrink the cabinet and reorganise Whitehall departments have already hit the buffers of political reality. Even a government with a big parliamentary majority cannot do everything at once, and needs to focus on a few big battles that it can win, rather than needlessly creating enemies, especially of public opinion.