ood news. The system is working. Britain’s largest media organisation by far, the BBC, has ministers howling for its blood. The ancient beast is wandering through the bush, wounded by the Martin Bashir affair and trumpeting its regrets. Tory ministers are taking potshots at it with headlines, eager for preferment in Boris Johnson’s next reshuffle. We know what happens next. The BBC sings another verse of “lessons will be learned”. Ministers come and go. Nothing much happens because the BBC is so designed for nothing much to happen. The marketplace, video-on-demand and social media may yet drive the corporation to extinction, but no government has yet dared to do so. That is how it should be. There are not many British values these days I would boast about round the world. But for parliament to finance a huge state corporation to supply a running critique on the government of the day must be unique. Of course it should be impartial, and the BBC is often not. It should be cost-conscious and it certainly is not. It should cater for all tastes, not just the latest social or cultural fad. But forget all that now. The root cause of the Bashir affair was a random act of deception in pursuit of a story. It was aggravated by a bad attack of poor handling and cover-up. But we knew enough from the whistleblower years ago. Where were the lacerating critics, whining ministers and Ofcom then? It was more than 25 years ago, and just sometimes it might not be structures to blame, but people long gone. Such mistakes should not detract from the BBC’s capacity to pursue critical journalism. For all the evils of bigness – and the BBC is absurdly overblown – there are benefits to size. They include diversity of outlets, investigative resources and the very existence of an argument-friendly public institution, not obsessively controlled by government. Ministers hate the BBC for understandable reasons. They cannot trust it. British governments have been right of centre for two-thirds of the past half century, and the BBC can often seem a second “official” opposition. But it is not perceived as biased by the public, and is by far the most trusted news organisation. Nor is it all-powerful. During the 2016 referendum it was criticised as anti-Brexit, but that clearly did not determine the outcome. Indeed, it was preferable to its current grovelling to Johnson by televising him each evening, Putin-like, in a favourable setting. Media diversity is a critical component of democracy. When the BBC experiences a professional failure, it has no shortage of critics to supply vilification. It may now suffer for it, probably in more cuts to its notorious extravagance. Yes, like the police and the NHS, it can use its security and independence as cover for mistakes, arrogance and failings of governance. But if at times it also infuriates the government of the day, we should all say thank goodness. Every country should be so lucky. Simon Jenkins is a Guardian columnist