BBC must compete with hits such as Netflix’s The Crown

Tony Hall did not hold back. A week after announcing he would step down, the BBC’s director-general gave an impassioned defence of the broadcaster’s purpose.

Lord Hall said that American streaming giants, such as Netflix, had been encouraged to invest in the UK because of “fantastic tax breaks”, but questioned their commitment to the nation.

“Who is going to bring the country together on events like Holocaust Memorial Day and do things that reflect what matter to us?” he asked at a public event. “It won’t be the streamers.”

That message is failing to get through to Boris Johnson. The prime minister warned the BBC during the election that a shake-up was looming over perceived left-wing bias. Last week, he followed up with a two-pronged