A war of words between the government and the BBC broke out on Wednesday when Mark Thompson, the broadcaster’s director general, accused a small group of “ideologically focused” people within the UK government of trying to undermine his organisation’s financial security.

Mr Thompson, in a pre-recorded interview with a BBC Radio 4 programme, said that there were no circumstances in which so-called “top-slicing” – the use of part of the £3.6bn licence fee to make programmes for other channels – would be a good idea.