Mark Andrews: FA declares war on Iceland, and Romesh demonstrates all that is wrong with the modern BBC

His four-minute advert, broadcast during the already painfully elongated half-time break of the World Cup final, was so lacking in self-awareness it made you question whether the corporation is on some kind of suicide mission.

After all, if you are really trying to persuade a sceptical public about the benefits of a compulsory TV tax, would you really give a wedge of that money to the man who symbolises so much that is wrong with today’s BBC - overpaid, over-exposed, self-satisfied, liberal, and about as funny as Rachel Reeves - to give them a stern telling-off about it?

It could have been worse. But I’m guessing they couldn’t afford Huw Edwards.

The only alternative explanation is that the broadcast was put together by people so ensconced in the BBC’s bubble that they can’t really understand why anyone would question the licence fee in the first place. So they just repeated the same old message in ever more strident tones, like an inebriated British tourist trying to order drinks at a non-English-speaking bar in Benidorm.

The broadcast was a poor quality re-tread of one made by John Cleese in 1985. Which seems fitting, given how much of the BBC’s output is stale old ideas milked to death. The programmes highlighted - EastEnders, Strictly Come Dancing, Casualty and Doctor Who - passed their sell-by dates years ago, and the only reference to comedy was an appearance by the girl out of the terminally unfunny Gavin and Stacey. And it’s probably best not to boast about ‘verified news’ when the US president is suing you for £10 billion over a doctored speech.

As someone who is on the fence about the licence fee, I might have been persuaded if the film made a compelling argument for local radio - which has suffered dreadful cuts in recent years as the likes of Romesh and Lineker filled their boots - or hard-hitting investigations, traditional comedy and drama untainted by wokery.

But everything in that broadcast was aimed firmly in the comfort zone of ultra BBC loyalists whose only criticism of the licence fee is that it is not enough.

Which kind of makes you wonder why they bothered.

Good to know the Football Association has got its finger on the pulse of the nation. Now it might not have got round to making any representations about the Argentinian football team defying the competition’s rules with their banner about the Falkland Islands at the end of the World Cup semi-final. The blazers at Lancaster Gate have also been eerily silent on the Premier League’s tardiness in dealing with the 115 alleged breaches of Financial Fair Play rules by Manchester City, some 19 months after the hearing was concluded.

But fair play, the old duffers have acted decisively on the real issue which is riling most football fans at the moment: the sign outside a freezer centre in Stourbridge.

Lawyers acting on behalf of the FA issued a ‘cease and desist’ notice to retailer Iceland, after it temporarily changed the name of its Stourbridge shop to ‘England’ in celebration of reaching the semis.

Quite how the name of our country is a copyright of the FA is anybody’s guess. Now that the shop has reverted to its old name, can it expect action from the Icelandic football association?

A report by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation says 55 per cent of families on low incomes have cut back on food, reducing the size of their meals due to the cost-of-living crisis.

Which is strange, considering we are also being told that obesity is one of the biggest causes of health problems among people on low incomes.

Now, without wishing to trivialise the problem, would it really be such a bad thing if they cut down on portion sizes?