This is taken from the London Evening Standard, August 3, 2012:

How Mrs T tried to zap BBC licence fee

MARGARET Thatcher made an attempt — of sorts — to scrap the BBC licence fee right at the end of her premiership, former Home Secretary Lord Waddington discloses.

In his memoirs, out next week, Waddington writes that in her final weeks in power Mrs T summoned him to Downing Street. He was Home Secretary at the time and his civil servants had suspected what was afoot. They told him to “keep her off the licence fee”. As soon as he was through the door, the Prime Minister said: “I want to talk about getting rid of the licence fee.” Waddington played for time. After an awkward half hour or more a No 10 flunkey knocked on the door and said that the Israeli ambassador had been waiting 20 minutes and needed to be seen. “Infuriating,” said Thatcher, promising that the licence fee would “have to wait for another meeting”. When Waddington returned to his department he was duly congratulated by his officials for having seen off the threat to the BBC’s livelihood.