Ah, I see. That’s what they mean by levelling up. Improving opportunities for super-rich Tory donors…

Sometimes stories bump into each other like badly driven cars, leaving scratches and a dent, even though there are no witnesses, and no one can say who was to blame.

Each story is left with paint belonging to the other. Here are two such near-misses…

Alan Rusbridger is the former Guardian editor who now edits Prospect magazine. He tweeted the other day that he had been refused a freedom of information request to see the minutes of a mysterious body convened by the Government to consider the future of the BBC.

His request was turned down because this panel needs “a safe space to debate live policy ideas away from external interference and distraction”.

Coming in the other direction was a much-shared story from the Sunday Times. This revealed that a monied cohort of the most generous Conservative Party donors has been granted access to senior ministers and advisers during the pandemic.

The BBC website’s paper review said: “As Boris Johnson was taking controversial and difficult decisions, some of Britain’s wealthiest people were given unique opportunities to question his team and offer their views on the government’s direction”.

Ah, I see. That’s what they mean by levelling up. Improving opportunities for super-rich Tory donors, who are given a back-door key to slip into Downing Street.

Here is Boris Johnson’s real world, not that one when he dresses up in working people’s outfits, strains the fasteners on Hi-Vis jackets, bothers hospital staff on a busy day, or has an RAF P-8A Poseidon plane flown more than 330 miles from Scotland (and back again!) for the world’s stupidest Top Gun-style photo opportunity. It’s so much easier to be surrounded by real money rather than pretending to care about real people.

And should you be worrying that inviting a group of multimillionaire Tory donors into the heart of government sounds perilously close to corruption, you’ll get no argument from me.

Those were the two story-cars that passed on Twitter.

The paintwork left on one from the other is that the government could be asking, for instance, enemies of the BBC such as Rupert Murdoch to share their ideas for what should happen to the corporation.

That’s a guess, but should such a scenario occur, it’s likely his contribution will be a gruff “scrap it now”.

That’s why we should know who the government has invited to exchange ideas or swap grubby favours.

In a later tweet, Rusbridger said: “Update: the mysterious panel last met in November and no longer exists. Baffling that they still ‘need a safe space to debate live policy issues’. The DCMS is supposed to nurture a free press, not block it. Appeal has been filed…”

We need to know these things, to be told who’s doing favours for whom. For instance, Culture Secretary Nadine Dorries has removed legal restrictions preventing Murdoch from interfering in the editorial independence of the Times and the Sunday Times. These were put in place by Margaret Thatcher when he was allowed to buy the papers in 1981.

Why was this favour granted by the BBC-bashing Dorries? Oh, probably because Rupert gets what Rupert wants. And one of his embittered desires has long been to see the BBC obliterated.

Over in the Observer, my usual Sunday read, a report revealed that six Tory donors have been “given top culture posts since Johnson became PM”. This is all part of the Tories pretending that the world is against them, and they need to put ‘their people’ in all the top jobs – or, as an invite to such donors put it in 2019, “It is important Conservatives rebalance the representation at the head of these important public bodies”.

And if you think such jobs should simply go to the best people, irrespective of party politics, you’re clearly not paranoid enough to get the job.

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