The big numbers in BBC entertaining are not personal, but corporate. How else does the BBC keep hold of its £3.5 billion licence fee income? This is a system decided upon by politicians and voted on by them at regular intervals.

So the BBC spends a lot of money entertaining them, with lunches, dinners, receptions and — above all — events.

Nearly every British politician will be wined and dined every year and the most influential will be invited to the big events, such as Royal Ascot and, of course, Wimbledon.

The lavish production values in the BBC’s coverage of those events are matched by more subtly lavish hospitality.

Take the Proms. Here you have two months of concerts, heavily subsidised by the BBC, where hundreds of decision-makers and opinion-formers are invited to the BBC’s boxes in the Royal Albert Hall to admire this magnificent festival of public patronage. Canapés, smoked salmon sandwiches and chilled white wine abound: and who can fail to be impressed by the music and the BBC?

I don’t believe there is any significant level of personal corruption and indulgence. Yes, the chauffeur-driven cars and taxis kept waiting for hours while lunches run late are symptomatic of a cadre of executives who have no problem spending the public’s money. But that is dwarfed by the corporate entertaining. Yet if this were the private sector, how much would you spend to protect virtually your sole source of income?

Expenses and entertaining are but symptoms of the disease: as long as the licence fee endures, they will never be eradicated.

David Elstein is a former chief executive of Five

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