The National:

YOU'D really think they would have learned by now.

It’s been five months since Culture Secretary Nadine Dorries unwittingly revealed she had absolutely no idea what she was talking about when it came to Channel 4 – and other Tory MPs are still doing the same thing.

This time it was the turn of Ben Bradley, the privately educated chairman of the “working class” Blue Collar Conservatives group.

Bradley, like all the other pliant Tories, was eager to line up to argue for the privatisation of Channel 4. And if not knowing anything about the topic didn’t hold the Culture Secretary back, it sure as hell wasn’t going to stop him.

READ MORE: Five times the Conservative Party were NOT happy with Channel 4

Responding to Dorries’s announcement about looking to send Channel 4 private, the Mansfield MP wrote: “Welcome this! The state doesn't need to be owning media. It made sense once when we had a handful of channels, but now we have a million choices.

“C4 can't raise any of its own money, which holds it back ... £ ends up being from the taxpayer. Let it free, and it will compete!”

Ignoring the odd logic in Bradley’s argument that having state-owned media only makes sense when there isn’t any competition to speak of, it’s the second part of the tweet that really got him noticed.

As anyone who’s read even a cursory article on the Channel 4 privatisation news will know, the broadcaster announced a record surplus in 2021, is perfectly free to raise its own funds, and takes no money from the public purse.

That’s more than can be said for Bradley himself. His local Mansfield Chad paper reported that he costs the taxpayer more than £200,000 a year.

Twitter users were quick to point out Bradley’s error, which led him to (not so quietly) take down the post. Unperturbed as always, he had a second crack.

“Welcome this,” he wrote in his second draft. “If C4 wants to compete in the modern market, it needs to be able to invest and grow. It can't do that unless it is free from the state.

“Taxpayers can't fund that. So it needs to be a private business. No need for state involvement anymore!”

READ MORE: Fears Scottish jobs could go as UK Government set to privatise Channel 4

Asked how Channel 4 was state-funded, he replied: “Not what my tweet says!”

Well, it’s not quite what his second tweet says anyway.

Responding to Bradley’s post, Twitter user Lee Acaster quipped: “Here’s an example of somebody being publicly owned that DOES cost the taxpayer money.”

He shared a video of Bradley appearing on Channel 4 being grilled by host Krishnan Guru-Murthy.

The exchange may bring to mind the comments made by key Tory MP Julian Knight on Tuesday, when he suggested the “elephant in the room” was that ministers wanted to sell Channel 4 off as “revenge” for the times it scrutinised them.