That certain members of the current government are actively hostile to the BBC is a given. Back in 2010, Conservative Home reported some of the milder remarks on the subject from Culture Secretary Jeremy Hunt.

“…there are huge numbers of things that need to be changed at the BBC. They need to demonstrate the very constrained financial situation we are now in.”

Other quotes, if I remember correctly, included words like “we must all feel the pain” in conjunction with “deficit reduction”. Of course, the BBC’s license fee settlement plays absolutely no part in deficit reduction as the license fee is essentially an earmarked tax – there is nothing else the government could do with it even if they wanted to. What the government can do is make the BBC pay for things which have historically not come out of the Corporation’s budget – like the BBC World Service.
In recent years, the World Service (which celebrates its 80th anniversary on February 29th), has been funded by the Foreign Office. There is a very good reason for this: The World Service is, essentially, a foreign policy tool – an extension of diplomacy. This is clear both from its history and from its current activities. Consider this:

• In World War 2, news bulletins in Danish and Norwegian began on the days the two countries were invaded; a Dutch service was set up about a month after Holland was occupied.
• The Service was also used to broadcast coded messages to spies and resistance fighters during the war.
• During the Cold War, the World Service (along with Voice of America and Deutsche Welle) played a crucial role in providing alternative news and views to the government-approved reality behind the Iron Curtain. I remember my father listening to DW (and being told I was allowed to tell no one) in 1986 to find out news about Chernobyl.
• The Bulgarian, Croatian, Czech, Greek, Hungarian, Kazakh, Polish, Slovak, and Slovene services did not last long after the end of the Cold War – their political use had diminished, and the funds were rerouted to Arabic and Persian-language TV channels instead in line with shifting foreign policy priorities.
• As the situation in the aftermath of the break-up of Yugoslavia continues to stabilise, we have recently seen the demise of the Serbian, Macedonian and Albanian services.
• Last year, the World Service signed a funding deal with the US State Department to combat internet and TV censorship in countries like Iran and China.

Despite this history, the government is in denial about the role of the World Service in foreign policy, and from 2014 the BBC will have to make its license fee money stretch as far as funding the World Service.
Don’t get me wrong – I like the World Service. Over the years, it has helped me learn English, provided half-decent news when I’ve been travelling and even asked me to appear on one of its radio shows. As extensions of diplomacy go, it beats war hands-down. I just think the government should call a spade a spade and continue to fund the World Service out of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office’s budget rather than dump it on license fee payers like an unwanted puppy ten days after Christmas.