A BETTER EXAMPLE of a frontal attack on the Establishment
is given by Henry Fairlie in this month's Encounter in an article on the BBC. Mr. Fairlie reasonably complains that the pure milk of his (and, earlier, A. J. P. Taylor's) Establishment theory has been adulterated by a host of other writers, each with his own idea of what the Establishment is—some of the ideas being grotesque. When it comes to putting. forward his own concept Mr. Fairlie is, admittedly, not at his most lucid; but his description of the BBC as the Establishment's embodiment is a delight, and his account of the unsuccessful attempt to defeat commercial television as 'one of the clearest examples of the Establishment in action in de- fence of one of its dearest illusions, namely, that it knows best what is good for other people' is convincing. Here the challenge was made, and successfully, though even now I cannot see how the commercial television lobby succeeded, in the face of such reserves of lethargy and prejudice— and of some very reasonable arguments which, had they been listened to, would have meant that independent television would have provided a much better servi:e than it does.
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