Why, fresh from picking fights with junior doctors and head-teachers, do the Tories want to mess around with the BBC? The Government is today publishing its White Paper on the reform of the Beeb — and, at the time of writing, initial reports suggest that they may have already rowed back from some of the most egregious changes they had floated for fear of being defeated in Parliament.

But why are they even floating hare-brained schemes to antagonise the BBC in the first place? Many voters have told me they voted Conservative last year to keep Ed Miliband out of Number 10, to stop the UK dancing to the SNP’s tune, to keep the economy on track, and so on. I haven’t met one who wants the Conservatives to beat up Auntie.

Yet they have floated proposals affecting the scheduling of the BBC’s most popular shows, reducing the scope of its online operation and, most worryingly, giving ministers the power to hand-pick half of its board. The latter, which it appears they do intend to pursue, would give ministers indirect power to interfere with editorial policy — a more aggressive form of political interference in the media than the system of self-regulation advocated by the Leveson Inquiry, which the self-declared “champions of the free press” on the Tory benches condemned with such fury.

None of this is particularly new. In the early months of the Coalition, I blocked an attempt to slash the length of the BBC’s charter and insisted on a tough but fair financial settlement. What puzzled me then, and still does today, is why the Conservatives have this fixation with doing down the BBC.

The BBC is by no means perfect. I found it by turns Byzantine and infuriating to deal with while in government. It bears the classic flaws of any large administration: opaque decision-making; infighting; bureaucratic lethargy.

But it is nonetheless a great British institution. It is widely loved. It is world- renowned as a symbol of British ingenuity and influence. Its remit to educate, inform and entertain enriches our society. It is staffed by many brilliant, creative folk who are dedicated to the ideal of public broadcasting.

Some argue that the Tories are simply echoing the views of their backers in the Murdoch press and the Daily Mail. Others say many Conservatives seem to view the BBC as a political enemy, run by a cabal of Guardian-reading academics and latte-sipping metropolitan Lefties with an axe to grind.

I have no idea whether these allegations are true — though the idea that the BBC is biased against the Conservatives is patently ludicrous. In fact, if unwittingly, the BBC provided a huge boost to the Conservatives last year by obsessing about the prospect of a Labour-minority Government, so amplifying the Conservatives’ central campaign message. Given that every political party at some point seems to think the BBC is against them — from red-faced SNP supporters during the Scottish independence referendum to the revolting sexist bilge directed at political editor Laura Kuenssberg by angry Corbynistas last week — it suggests that it is probably in the right place. God knows I have had my own grumbles about Lib-Dem representation, or lack of it, on BBC programmes in the past.

To understand why the Tories are expending so much effort on the BBC go back to the general election: they didn’t expect to win a majority and hadn’t planned for it. Expecting, at best, to govern with another party, they filled their manifesto with crowd-pleasing ideas to titillate Conservative audiences but not to be put into practice, from scrapping the Human Rights Act to slashing tax credits.

When they won an unexpected majority, the less thoughtful Conservatives let it go to their heads. They mistook their victory as a thumbs-up for their own fixations, when in reality less than a quarter of voters supported them and did so as the best of a bad bunch.

The result? A peculiar mixture of arrogance and aimlessness, hubris and incoherence. Their civil war over Europe has intellectually paralysed them further. Right now, I am not sure if the Conservatives know why they are in power — other than to keep the other lot out and argue among themselves. What’s the mission? What’s the purpose of the next five years?

Some argue that the Tories are just echoing the views of their backers in the Murdoch press and the Daily Mail Nick Clegg

In the absence of a clear plan, and unchallenged by any meaningful opposition, they have indulged their own prejudices: picking fights with the BBC, junior doctors, headteachers, refugees, low-paid workers, housing association tenants and each other on Europe. No wonder they bounce from one ill-judged initiative to the next. As each announcement disintegrates on contact with political daylight, they are forced into a series of humiliating U-turns, from enforced academisation of schools to disability benefit cuts. So nursing their own bias against the BBC is a symptom, rather than a cause, of the underlying problem: unchallenged power without a sense of purpose.

David Cameron and George Osborne are lucky generals. They lead a Government that has had two Budgets which have fallen apart. In most democracies, failing to get one through is enough to bring a government down. They have only got away with it because Labour has failed to hold them to account.

The greatest threat to the Government is not that the public think they are ruthless or heartless — even some Conservative voters think they are a little of both — but that they are incompetent. The Conservative Party’s greatest weapon has always been a reputation for competence. Harsh, unfeeling, even brutal competence at times — but competence nonetheless. Lose that and they will lose the country.

I don’t see why the BBC should have to suffer. This Government doesn’t have the mandate to mess up public broadcasting. It is owned and funded by us, through the licence fee. It is not the plaything of governments.