Guest opinion By Christopher Monckton of Brenchley
One of the chief reasons why the governing class in Britain near-unanimously supports the climate alarmists is the unspeakable BBC, which, for decades now, has relentlessly endorsed every overblown, half-baked prediction by the profiteers of doom. If it has given coverage to skeptics at all, has done so sparingly and sneeringly.
Its charter and its agreement with the Secretary of State oblige it to be impartial, but it has decided not to be. The bad news, from the BBC’s point of view, is that John Whittingdale, the newly-appointed Cabinet Minister responsible for the BBC’s many sins, has little time for the organization, whose coverage of the recent UK general election was even more biased against the eventually successful Tories than usual.
The Cabinet are out for blood. Well, the best step they could take would be to abolish the BBC license fee of $250 a year (£145.50, to be exact) – not far short of a dollar a day – which everyone who watches any live program on television, whether or not the BBC broadcast it, is obliged by law, on pain of criminal conviction for a misdemeanor, to pay. Let the BBC live by attracting advertising, like everyone else.
I do not pay. I discovered some years ago, when we lived in a remote Highland glen where no television signal could penetrate, that one thinks more independently if one is not constantly exposed to the plethora of pusillanimous, politically-correct prejudices that our news channels provide. I have long given up watching live TV.
The BBC employs an army of “TV license inspectors” – known to the growing unlicensed community as “goons”. Each goon, tamquam leo rugiens, prowls about with a television detector van, quaerens quem devoret.
When the detector vans first came into use, the then Postmaster-General, Lord de la Warr, said he did not want to create an army of snoopers. The vans (see above) were accordingly made as obvious as possible. When I was a lad, we used to throw doubtful tomatoes at them as they passed, or put mouldy potatoes up their tailpipes: that works better than the banana that Axel Foley used in Beverly Hills Cop (which I didn’t watch on live TV, officer, honest I didn’t).
Some of the vans (see above) looked like clothes-horses. We often festooned them with pairs of knickers from people’s washing lines, so that they could have gone into the rag trade by the time they returned to base.
The point is that Britain does not like snoopers. An Englishman’s home is his castle – and, in a more real sense, a Scotsman’s home too. The goons, though, are actually very skilled at what they do. Astonishingly, one criminal conviction in every ten in Britain is for evading payment of the TV licence.
A government sufficiently angry with the BBC’s anti-capitalist, anti-enterprise, anti-Tory, anti-carbon, anti-fracking, anti-Britain, anti-freedom, anti-everything bias to take away the absurdly anachronistic licence fee would cut criminality in Britain by 10% at a stroke.
Indeed, it might well cut crime by a good bit more than that, because often it is petty offenses that lead people from the straight and narrow into a life of crime.
The detector vans now come in two kinds: the visible ones, intended to deter, and the unmarked ones, intended to deceive. Gone is Lord de la Warr’s pious intention not to create an army of snoopers. Most of the vans are now furtive: not such an obvious target for us street brats and our rotten fruit.
The goons write once a month to every one of the 6% of British households that does not have a TV licence. The best legal advice is never, ever to reply. If they turn up at the doorstep, never, ever let them in and never, ever answer any question they ask.
Make them go and get a warrant, but serve them with a schedule of your time-costs before they go. Then, if they return with a warrant, you can charge them whatever you want for having your time wasted. And always video everything they say and do. Half the time they’ll turn and flee as soon as they know they’re on camera.
The goons will often demand your name. Nothing in the law requires you to give it. You are obliged to render them all reasonable assistance in inspecting your equipment. And not a whit more.
On YouTube they have been caught out not only trying to entrap innocent citizens unlawfully but also plugging in unplugged TVs so that they can then say the equipment was capable of receiving a signal.
You can refuse to let them in unless the court confirms a warrant has indeed been issued. The goons can also be legitimately refused entry, even with a warrant, unless and until the BBC or the police have confirmed to you that their identity card is not a fake.
When the goons prove their warrant and their identity and come in, they are entitled to do only one thing: inspect your television, or any other equipment (such as a computer) that may be capable of receiving live TV.
You are allowed to watch recorded programs without a license, but – strange though this must seem to those born in freedom – you must not watch or record live programs without one.
You can watch catch-up TV without a licence. So, if you don’t mind waiting an hour or two or a day or two, you can lawfully watch just about any TV program.
On YouTube there are hundreds of videos of goons penetrating people’s homes, usually without a warrant. In some videos, when householders have refused to give their names, the goons have menaced them with the offense of failing to co-operate.
It is indeed an offense, more serious than that of not having a licence, to fail to assist the goons in inspecting your equipment if they ask, but it is not an offense to refuse to answer any questions other than questions about how your TV works. Specifically, the law does not oblige you to give your name, or to answer any questions about what you do or do not watch. So don’t.
Shortly after we set up house in Edinburgh, the goons parked a gray, unmarked van with blacked-out rear and side windows (above: the licence-plate is not genuine, for by convention we don’t picture real ones) at the front of the house.
They left the engine running for 45 minutes, which is actually illegal under anti-pollution laws: but in some of the vans that is the only way they can power their detectors.
Recently, having sent me a letter saying they would take no action till 14 May, on 12 May they parked not one but two unmarked detector vans with blacked-out windows (above, and note the perpetual sunshine that Scotland enjoys each May) outside my house. Entrapment may be unlawful in the U.S., but, shamefully, it is lawful here.
However, if They can detect us, we can detect Them. After I had gone out and ostentatiously photographed the vans from every angle, They drove off, mutteringly disappointed.
Next, They tried doing drive-by shootings, using the same vans. However, we again detected Them trying to detect us. Frankly, it wouldn’t have mattered what vans They’d used. We have the technology. We’re used to defending our property. Once our yacht – a magnificent Flying Fifteen was sent to the bottom of Loch Rannoch and stove in by two RAF Chinooks flying far too low one night and clouting the masthead.
We installed certain devices and, when the RAF police arrived to take our complaint, we showed them a picture of a Tornado fighter flying just 50 feet above our North Lawn. It had been taken from 3000 feet above the lawn. They went white. “How did you get that?” they asked. “We have the technology,” I replied, “but I’m not telling you how we did it.” They still don’t know.
The excessive low flying, which had been a pest for decades and had caused dreadful losses of livestock locally, as well as blowing slates off the roof of our steading and terrifying my late mother-in-law, who had survived the Blitz with equanimity, promptly ceased.
But I digress. I tell this tale of the license fee because, just about everywhere around the world, there is complete astonishment that we allow for a single instant this ridiculous pantomime of the licence fee and the humungous police-state snooping regime and the millions of otherwise blameless criminals it creates. And the staggering, entirely unjustifiable cost of the unspeakable, prejudiced, politically-correct BBC.
In the 21st century, in a free country, the State should not require us to subsidize its TV service to the tune of $4-5 billion a year, particularly when that TV service, in sullen and flagrant breach of its contract with the government and people, altogether refuses to provide balanced coverage of politics, and specifically of climate change.
Why should we have to pay for wall-to-wall Marxism when we can get it for free by listening to the ruling National Socialist Workers’ Party of Scotland, or the Royal Society in England?
At present, I am preparing a report to be sent to the BBC’s trust, a fumbling, toothless watchdog, demonstrating the extent of the corporation’s malevolent and systemic prejudice on the climate question, its wilful misrepresentations and its refusals to correct deliberate errors, and demanding that the trust should take certain specific steps to restore the impartiality that the law entitles the licence-fee payer to expect in return for his dollar a day.
If the trust fails to respond promptly and properly (on past form this is very likely, for the one-sidedness of the British establishment’s opinion on climate is impenetrable, and the trust are a bunch of blancmanges), we shall complain to the Secretary of State.
If Whitto does nothing, we are gathering our forces and our finances to mount a judicial review of his administrative decision not to act as a reasonable Secretary of State would have to act on being given masses of overwhelming evidence, quietly assembled over many years, of the BBC’s rank prejudice and flagrant, in-your-face bias on the climate question.
They even lied when I took them to the High Court some years ago to make them halve the length of an objectionable 90-minute personal attack. The High Court judge said I’d substantially won the action – it’s in the transcript, and the program’s length was cut to 45 minutes and transferred to BBC 4, which no one watches – but they announced I’d lost.
The Secretary of State, on receiving our letter before action in judicial review, will require the trust to respond. If it does not respond properly to him, he will then be able to give it two choices: do its job or expect legislation to bring to an unlamented end the licence fee, the monstrous poll tax on the poor on which it lives a life of luxury and ease.
Monckton’s Test applies. The test of whether a piece of legislation has passed its smell-by date and ought to be repealed is whether anyone would dream of re-enacting it if it were done away with. No politician would dare to try to reintroduce the hated licence fee once it had been swept away. It has had its chips, as they say from the casinos of Vegas to the fish-shops of Yorkshire. Let it be abolished. Few but the BBC, the goons and the magistrates’ courts would mourn its passing.
You may ask why this has not been done long before now. Margaret Thatcher tried her best. She appointed a sound and saintly but other-worldly academic philosopher to review the licence fee, but he was so impressed by the independent TV companies saying how “special” the BBC was that he left the fee in place.
I saw him some years later and explained to him, as to a child – which he splendidly was in all matters of this world – that the independent companies were the indirect beneficiaries of the licence fee, for otherwise they would have the BBC competing with them for advertising. The licence fee thus subsidizes – and Leftizes – all TV stations in Britain. They didn’t want Auntie – as the BBC is known – sharing their cake.
He saw the point at once. But by then it was far too late. However, John Whittingdale will not bother to set up another enquiry. He is the sort to take swift, decisive and – to the BBC – deadly action. By this time you may be wondering whether he and I are in cahoots. You might think that. I couldn’t possibly comment.
Now that Auntie has parked her tanks on my lawn, I’m going to park mine on hers. Mine are bigger, and they serve the cause of truth, justice, and the British way. Perhaps, once the existing corrupt organization has been purged and the red-blooded Marxists replaced with blue-blooded capitalists, we can have Top Gear back.
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Oh well – I come here for notifications of changes in climate science, and yet continually get distracted by things I really should not have time for! I don’t have a TV – since long ago when bringing up kids and I regarded it as a form of child-abuse (to which I was subjected by my beloved parents who no doubt as many today, relied on it to distract us kids whenever we were in the house – which was only after dark).
That said, I do love the BBC. I love the quality of its productions and the complete absence of advertising. I only see it when visiting friends or going down the pub to watch the rugby internationals. But then, I am a leftie-liberal greenie kind of person who hates the consumerist crap of commercial TV, as much as I hate the constant right-wing neo-liberal posturing of climate sceptics! The reason so few people in what you think is a socialist-commie-Guardian-BBC-greenie-blue plot (one has to include David Cameron in that bag) have so little time for the sceptical argument is precisely because it has been made so political. You guys have undermined the cause.
That said, Roger Harrabin rang me some time after my book ‘Chill: a reassessment of global warming theory’ was published, and shortly before he was to interview John Christy on the BBC. He asked what sort of questions he should ask. He had read my book and said he was impressed by the analysis. I told him to ask Prof Christy one critical question – ‘What proportion of the warming that had been observed did he regard as natural?’ I did not know what Christy’s estimate would be – my own had been 80% or more. Christy replied ‘75%’. That was recorded on the BBC and broadcast in the years before the current clamp-down.
Sadly, all this right-wing posturing contributes to the clamp-down. The opposition truly believes that we are heading for warmaggedon – and who can blame them when NASA, the UN, all science academies worldwide, and their own dear MetOffice and all the environmental NGOs tell them so. They should then give a renegade meteorologist’s blog more credence? Get real.
Don’t get me wrong – I have great respect for Anthony and the work this blog has done even though no one reviewed my book – perhaps because it was aimed at the ‘greens’ and argued for resources (and taxes) to be spent on adaptation to inevitable change. And I have great respect for Lord Monckton from a scientific perspective, ever since that article in the journal of the American Physical Society introduced me to his work.
I know it is no use pleading for a return to science as the focus of this blog – but for me, the site is going down-hill with all this political bluster and lack of respect. People have been hoodwinked – including the BBC and the Guardian, David Cameron and the Pope. We need to better understand that process because it is truly insidious, if we are to combat it effectively.
Peter Taylor is right to ask that this blog should concentrate on science and, to be fair, it does – almost to the exclusion of anything else. However, it would be foolish not to recognize that the totalitarian Left are in the driving seat as far as the climate nonsense is concerned; that the BBC and the Guardian have not been hoodwinked but are deliberately peddling misrepresentations that they can be proven to know are false; and that unless the problems of the international environmentalist Left and its increasing authoritarianism and hate speech are firmly dealt with the cost to Western civilization, and not merely to the reputation but also to the functioning of science herself, will be incalculable.
Sorry, but the only way to combat it effectively is to elect the most conservative possible US president, willing to call BS on the UN and defund the sc*m in academia and government. Here it is a left-right issue, with, as with Tories in the UK, even many Republicans who have drunk the Warm-Aid. There are essentially no “progressive” skeptics in any relevant position of power or the mainstream media in this country. There is no scientific basis for CACCA, only political, so ending its anti-human run will require a political solution.
Peter Taylor
Yes, you are right and you say it well. I have been saying the same on WUWT for years and have been vilified for it but – as I said – you are right and you say it well.
I commend the replies to you of both Monckton of Brenchley and sturgishooper because (strangely) I think they are each right, too.
Totalitarians come in all political colours, and the Khmer Rouge demonstrated the horrors of ‘green’ totalitarianism. Sadly for old ‘lefties’ like me, as Monckton of Brenchley implies, at present that political model is the greatest threat from the environmentalist scares.
Opposing that threat requires a powerful Western political lead, and the US could provide this. However, the US has the unique situation of dividing on left vs right terms with regard to the global warming scare. So, as sturgishooper suggests, overt reversal of support for the global warming scare is needed from the US political right.
This provides a problem for opponents of the ‘green’ agenda.
Outside of the US, supporters of the ‘green’ agenda and opponents of the ‘green’ agenda both come from across the entire political spectrum. It is difficult for those on the left to support the US political Right, and many of the US political Right fail to understand the principle of “the enemy of my enemy is my friend”.
In summation, we need an alliance of all people of good will who will oppose the ‘green’ agendas, but forging and maintaining that alliance will not be easy.
Richard
Even among the most conservative candidates, it’s hard to pin most of them down on their position on man-made “climate change”. I suspect that Dr. Paul knows it’s bogus, but as with so many other of his positions, he’s now backpedaling in hopes of getting elected. Voting record, as for the pipeline, may not indicate candidate’s actual convictions. In any case, the rot has spread far among the government class of all stripes.
http://thehill.com/blogs/ballot-box/presidential-races/242272-six-dangerous-issues-in-the-2016-gop-race
CLIMATE CHANGE
While none of the Republican contenders are vowing to tackle climate change if elected president, they are split on whether human activity is driving it.
Most Republican voters say it would be unacceptable for their candidate to believe in man-made climate change, let alone pursue policies to address it.
Some of the candidates, including Paul and Bush, have adopted an agnostic view, saying the jury is still out on how much the climate is changing, and if so, what role humans play in it.
Others, such as Cruz and Santorum, have depicted climate change as a hoax by the left to impose new environmental restrictions on the business community.
When the Senate considered legislation on the Keystone XL pipeline, Cruz, Rubio and Paul all voted for an amendment stating that climate change was real.
Paul was the only 2016 contender to support a separate amendment that stated human beings contribute to climate change.
sturgishooper
Thankyou. That is useful information.
Richard
You are most welcome. Thanks for all your family contributes here. And over there.
It’s hard to divine the real feelings of people running for office, but based upon the impressions of members of Congress of my acquaintance, some of the front runners are genuine skeptics. Of course, as politicians, they might be lying to me, too.
With eight months to go before the Iowa caucuses, there is no clear-cut front-runner, although Bush more often than not leads by a little in the polls. All possible candidates haven’t even announced yet. It’s pretty much wide open, but probably will boil down to which more conservative candidate will challenge Bush. Given his money, he can stay in the race even without winning in Iowa, New Hampshire or South Carolina. If he doesn’t finish first or second in Florida, however, he’s probably toast.
His main moderate challenger is Gov. Christie of New Jersey, who stands little chance.
This could change a lot, but right now the leading more or less conservative contenders to challenge him are Gov. Walker, Sen. Rubio, Sen. Paul, ex-Gov. Huckabee, Sen. Cruz and Dr. Carson:
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2016/president/us/2016_republican_presidential_nomination-3823.html
Mrs. Fiorina, like Carson, has never held elective office.
So will the Republicans spend so much time / money / energy fighting each other, that they have nothing left to fight Hillary ?
PS: Sen. Graham is also a “moderate”, but can affect the race only by possibly being a spoiler in his home state of South Carolina, which holds the second primary and third nominating event, after Iowa caucuses and New Hampshire primary, and which Bush is counting on winning, being from nearby Florida.
Past statements by various GOP candidates, some quite good if not indeed right on:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/wp/2014/05/12/where-the-2016-gop-contenders-stand-on-climate-change/
Sturgis: The candidate summary is (1) from the Wa Poo, a poor source, (2) a year old. We need newer, better information.
I beg to disagree. Science will win out sooner or later, but the real battle is ideological. It doesn’t matter if the ‘pause’ lasts for a hundred years. As Figueres made perfectly clear, it is all about clearing the way for Marxism. For me, the science is clear enough; it is ideology which has to be fought.
Greg Woods
I wrote
You have replied
Q.E.D.
Richard
I’m happy to report that the federal contribution to the US Corporation for Public Broadcasting was “only” $445 million in FY2014. With a GOP president, it might drop to the correct level of zero.
“With a GOP president, it might drop to the correct level of zero.”
Not a chance.
Even with a Conservative President, it’s unlikely that even a dime less would be spent.
House budgets have zeroed it out since 2011, if I am not mistaken, as Newt tried to do.
…“The unspeakable BBC parks its tanks on my lawn”…
To a point, my lord….
TV license administration is actually undertaken by Capita Ltd.
But Capita acts as the BBC’s agent or servant. In law, it is regarded as though it were the BBC. So its tanks were indeed the BBC’s tanks. I now keep a mouldy potato to hand.
Even parking tickets are issued by private companies these days.
Raedwald refers to it as cRapita, I think that, the moniker is
rather aptbloody well spot on.South Africa, too, has a TV tax/licence. I believe there are about 3-4 millon TV licences held. The last census showed about 8 million households with a TV. No detector vans, only threats -oh, and they don’t believe that you don’t have a TV, even if you are dead!
In South Africa you have to provide a licence to the shop to buy a TV in the first place. It is illegal to sell you one without it.
In a very democratic way, you can buy a car without a licence. If you want a licence, you can get one in Johannesburg for R2000 with a test (guaranteed pass, and no pass if you don’t pay) or R2500 if you don’t want to take the driving test at all. Very formal. Very organised. The official test fee is R108. The rest is organised overheads.
Read the impressions of those trying to get their licence: http://www.drivers.com/article/409/
John Doe says ‘Was always under the impression the vans were bogus’. I had this impression too. In the days of tubed TV’s with high-frequency (15KHz) and high voltage oscillators, no doubt some sort of signal could be picked up at a short distance. But with flat-screen TV’s all working at low voltages, is this still the case? Does anybody know for certain? And can anybody clarify how other ‘public’ broadcasters are financed? I have always held the opinion that, within ten years or so, ALL television will come down an optical fibre and you will be able to watch any programme (UK spelling) whenever you like after the airdate. No recording, no missing stuff – great! What will the Beeb do then? By all means finance it from general taxation, but make sure it sticks to its declaration of impartiality on pain of having funding cut!
Some of the vans are bogus. But the live ones are capable of detecting what program you’re watching.
I am not sure that that is correct. In the past when people have challenged the BBC the BBC has never wished to give disclosure of how there equipment works and what it can dedect.
The BBC successfully prosecutes its cases because of admissions made by people when interviewed, or by letting inspectors in the house and seeing how the TV is set up (ie., with an aerial plugged in).
I think that if no admission is made and the inspectors are not allowed in the house, the BBC would not run a prosecution based solely upon a claim that their dedector van had picked up a TV watching live broadcast TV as they would have to adduce how this was done and BBC wish to keep it confidential.
I think that the TV dedector vans are more of a deterent than anything else. People are hoodwinked into believing that the van can or has dedected the use of a TV receiving/watching live broadcast material. Of course, there is very sensitive audio equipment that can listen in to sound often simply from minor resonance of window panes. But the BBC probably would not wish to disclose that that is what is going on since then they would be accused of eavesdropping on private conversations and that is rather too STASIesque for public consumption.
There is already a controversy over smart TV sets with voice recognition picking up private conversations.
http://www.amazon.co.uk/s/?ie=UTF8&keywords=freesat+box&tag=mh0a9-21&index=electronics&hvadid=5101096500&hvqmt=e&hvbmt=be&hvdev=c&ref=pd_sl_6u0965crng_e
Get a FreeSat box and you can get the BBC throughout Europe.
http://www.streamtv.co.uk/
Would like to know if the Beeb on this site is available outside the UK???
The BBC news channels are available on the European satellite systems.
Nope – not in Oz anyway!
But even if you get a Freesat box you will still have to pay a licence fee if you watch either the BBC or any programme that you are receiving live. Same goes for cable or any other method of delivery. If your TV is receiving live programming and you are watching it, you must have a licence – unless the programme (e.g. a movie) was not made for television and is merely being rerun there. It is only live programming that you are obliged to get a licence for.
You don’t see the detector vans in the South of Spain, no problem in Norway or Greece either
While I was stationed in Germany most of the “married” had Sky TV.
How successful are the vans at detecting LCD displays since they do not throw out magnetic fields from deflection coils. The local oscillator/mixer on the new LCDs do not put out much of a signal and are well shielded.
What are they actually picking up?
The BBC’s detectors are very high-powered and, at close enough range (typically not more than 100 feet), they can tell what program you’re watching. It’s harder for them than it used to be: for instance, we have two computers and assorted cellphones and iPads as well as the main TV, and asn electronic grand piano keyboard for me to compose music for weddings (I’m just polishing six ecossaises for a wedding in Rannoch). I like to think of them listening to my elegant compositions (the Rannoch Rose, the Woodpecker, the Stag on the Hill, the Burn in Spate, the Merry Blacksmith, and Safe Home).
We use our various viewing gadgets mainly to watch and listen to the great works of Classical music, all of whom, performed by the leading virtuosi, are available free on YouTube, and in increasingly high quality. No TV licence is needed for that. For more and more people, live television is becoming irrelevant.
I used to visit an old couple in a working-class estate when I was at Cambridge. I remember how terrified they were when the TV licence came up for renewal. They had a little tin box with slots for rent, food, electricity, phone, gas and local taxes. But there was no slot for the TV licence fee, and they tearfully told me one day they didn’t know how they were going to afford it. A whip-round in the College bar sorted that out, and, as a result of cases like that, the licence fee is now free if you are over 75: but that couple were in their early 70s and could not possibly afford today’s monstrous licence fee.
I haven’t watched broadcast TV for at least a decade or cable for almost as long. All I watch on TV is via streaming video. For which of course I don’t even need a TV.
The Beeb is headed for the garbage can of history, one way or another.
Once you detach from live television there is really no going back because the content is in rapid decline. Attempts to go back to it are disappointing and amount to wasted money. The consumers of large LED displays and all the other tech innovations for TVs are discovering they have to use alternate content on those sets or they realize how they were duped playing hi fidelity crap on a very large screen. Speaking of which, is it even possible to install a 70 inch LED TV in a typical London flat?
Remember that kind of thing. And me and my dad lining up for ages at a Main Post Office 4 miles away with the Road Tax queue. Days of big VHF H shape antennas. And, (oh dear) the Black & White minstrel show…in black and white at 405 lines with just about a 12 inch screen.
Not only is there no longer a Road Tax queue, there is no longer a Road Tax disc.
Nor can anyone on Pension Credit afford it – the licence fee is a massive chunk of the weekly income of anyone on a basic state pension. This is esp the case for those (MANY) single people (mostly women pensioners who were never able to afford a pension) whose Housing Benefit no longer covers their rent, following the cuts early last year.
I wonder why UK hasn’t simply installed a cellphone-based licence checker into all new TVs sold in the country since a certain date? You turn on the TV, it calls home via cellphone to see if the licence is paid and fails to receive BBC or all channels until the TV licence is up-to-date on the central billing server. Your cellphone already does this before every call. By firing the whole BBC police force and selling off the vans, never to buy them again, they could cut the license fee by half, at least! License cops can find other work.
The TV will have a tuner, regardless of the type of display. As I understand it, that’s where the magic happens, resulting in a signal at either 2x or .5x the frequency of the channel. I’m not sure there’s any way to shield the set, since the power wiring might serve as a leakage path for the tell-tale frequency.
I do sympathize, I have not watched television for 5 years now. I used to get the threatening letters, the first 2 of which I replied to, and visits from large ladies demanding to come and have a look around the abode. After the last one I phoned the police to complain I was been harassed and they were quite understanding saying I should call them if they came around again.
I do have knowledge of the outrageous bias of the BBC from listening to the radio, I noticed in particular the constant sniping and ridicule directed at UKIP all of last year.
The constant reporting of any LGBT and other minority issues appears to suggest an agenda to attempt to mould the thinking of the society which seems unhealthy to me..
Hurray! Get rid of the BBC license fee and send all those who run the BBC out to earn a living like the taxpayers who are forced to fund them and their daft understanding of climate. If people believe in Global Warming I no longer trust them to be right about anything else. It is a litmus paper for stupidity.
Apart from the TV programmes and there are a few of value..not including drama any more. Its the BBC World Service (WS) that really surprises me and most in UK don’t listen I suspect. It is largely non British crap and seems to hinge on Nigeria more often than not. That means for me being an indigenous Brit, I cannot understand most of what is being spoken. Its another pidgin version. Might be the N. London version where so much of the BBC junk arises from. The noisy yadder round the table over the air.
Its alarming really because the WS calls its self the worlds radio programme….very, very often. I seem to remember the Chinese saying they once learned English via the WS or that it assisted them greatly. Think they must be doing that with a Nigerian twang now? Its no longer much about Britain and English! I welcomed it in S. Arabia when the Grand Mosque was grabbed in Mecca (oops!). Anyway, comms blackout on a comms system that was largely banned anyway.
This licence fee began with the Wireless & Telegraphy Act that required anybody operating radio receivers and/or transmitters to annually cough up. That Act is likely still in place thus allowing you to be nailed harshly. Not sure any more and largely don’t care.
The detector vans as far as I remember used radio spectrum analysers (SA) and as I experienced on a different job were used often by the FCO in other places. The detector vans sought the common TV LO frequency, I was looking for other stuff. I saw one very early one morning (6:30) pull out of a small residential area bordering the countryside…big antenna array on the vehicle side. That’s an array capable of forming a narrow receiving beam.
They have a database now, so no reliance on SA’s I think?
Does the Royal Family pay this poll tax?
The current legislation requiring payment of a licence fee is the Communications Act 2003 and the spate of pettifogging regulations made thereunder. There is an arguable case that the licence fee is actually unenforceable in any circumstances, because the legislation says the Secretary of State and/or the BBC may make regulations (without even referring them to Parliament for democratic input). Though the Secretary of State’s regulations are promulgated, the BBC’s are not. And there is reason to believe that the BBC’s regulations are not identical to those of the Secretary of State. The BBC’s regulations are not required to be identical to those of the Secretary of State, but they must not be incompatible with them.
However, the BBC’s regulations, like those of the Secretary of State, must be published in an organized formn. As far as I know, the BBC has not done this. For instance, there is nothing in the Communications Act to say that one may watch a TV without a licence as long as it is not receiving live programs. The BBC permits this, but there is no document, as far as I know, in which all of the conditions on which licences are and are not required are clearly spelled out. Accordingly, the entire regulations are void for uncertainty of promulgation, and no one can be lawfully made to pay a licence fee.
If anyone knows of any BBC regulations made under the Communications Act, please join this thread.
That identifies inconsistency and failure particularly where parliament is not consulted. The BBC thus effectively acting as a pirate broadcaster. It is often indicated that Gov and BBC are too closely linked and therefore can get away easily with such non compliance(s).
I once tried to understand that Act relating to GPS repeater systems. I gave up in the end. They were banned latterly due to usage against the emergency services and so on.
I think that currently the BBC says that you may not watch anything, on any device, that is being broadcast to air or has recently been broadcast to air, This is probably why they keep saying that they are available on tablet, mobile and wotnot, preparing for some new arrangement in the next revue of the license fee.
By the way that big mast at Crystal Palace fried the security system on my ancient vehicle a few years ago so they got me someway.
A sudden thought….does the edge of the Freeview footprint in outer Scotland radiate upon you. Freeview…..bit of a strange term to use I thought?
Best wishes to you in this endeavour and let us know about funding requirements. And via Bishop Hill if poss.
The telephone tax reimposed by LBJ to pay for the Vietnam War has still not been totally repealed, although parts of it were in 2006, after 40 years.
To all those Brits who have no TV and find the constant letters harassing: Send a polite reply ‘Recorded Delivery’ marked FAO whoever the signitory is and put Copy to whoever your MP is on the bottom. Send a copy to your MP marked ‘No action to be taken – for information only.’ You’ll get a much more polite reply from TV Licensing telling you they won’t write again for two years. It’s possible, but unlikely, that you’ll still get a visit, though.
Best thing is never to reply at all.
It’s worked for me for the past seven years. Best wishes, Lord M.
Mind control is a terrible thing to waste, like a missed opportunity for some social architects.
Get off my lawn…
I evicted the TV from my house years ago. Good move.
I can get all the news and comment I want via the internet. Most Hollywood films are sh*te, the news is full of lies, soaps are full of social engineering messages and corporate product placement. The ‘news’ (the BBC/corporate kind) is there to form public opinion, not to inform the public. The TV’s a waste of space; there’s nothing on there I’d want to watch. It is a very great shame that millions of people are hypnotised by it though.
In the wake of Cameron’s “if you obey the law we will leave you alone” (but not anymore because we’re implementing a super high-tech, stazi-style, pre-crime detection, mass surveillance system to deprive law abiding citizens of their right to free speech) statement, I think it is good that MB is drawing attention to the plight of the ordinary citizen being subjected to this kind of tyranny.
Reblogged this on The Arts Mechanical and commented:
If Lord Monkton brings Jeremy Clarkson back he will be the most popular man in Britain, but one.
No wonder the manipulators of all global financial markets are in London. The enforcers are out checking BBC license fee compliance. I’ll bet this is also on the top of the list of compliance steps by extremist cells and Russian assassins to avoid exposure.
Dear Chris,
I can’t fathom what your article might have got to do with global warming (or lack thereof) but you are funny and fun is the salt of life. I am trying (on a much lower level than you) to fight the TV tax They insist on imposing on me every year in Paris, and I am going to use some of your tactics for next year. To thank you, if one day you feel like taking a break from what they insist on calling food in the UK (with the exception of scottish breakfasts, of course) I am ready to offer you a dinner in Paris, as long as you are willing to put up with my accent. Just let me know.
What would a global warming themed Parisienne dinner consist of ?
the organizers of the whatchamacallit summit need to know
something flambe is a bit obvious. I’m sure contributors can come up with tastier
Since they hate humanity, maybe Bebe Flambe.
barbecued antarctic krill pate on toast with sun dried tomatoes ?
polar bear steaks barbecued on regurgitated wood chippings ( help me out here )
I’ll let you in on a “secret” of french cuisine: they don’t really care all that much where it’s coming from or what its carbon footprint might be as long as it tastes good.
Dear Kalya22, – Count me in. I’ll be in Paris in December for the UN pifflefest, and if you had a room for me that would be excellent. Then I could take you out to dinner.
The connection between this article and global warming is that the BBC has relentlessly misled its viewers and listeners about the subject, and has abandoned the impartiality enjoined upon it by its agreement with the Secretary of State. If we can knock the BBC off its perch, the prejudices of the British establishment that run strongly in favour of the climate nonsense would begin to shift quite rapidly.
I wish I had a room for you… but the dinner invite stands.
Thanks for the explanation. Your effort at knocking the BBC off its perch is extremely ambitious in my views, but your correcting their BS is very much appreciated! Keep at it as long as They don’t succeed in making it illegal to do so…
Lord Monkton, try to get the BBC to actually reveal if they are actually receiving ANY signals from a television set. I’m going to bet that it will turn out that the whole detector thing has been a fraud from the beginning. That’s as somebody who’s been playing around with electronics since he was 15, and been dealing with either keeping RF out or keeping RF in one way or another for about 20 years off and on in a bunch of environments. There’s a whole science to shielding for interference and eliminating it and quite frankly if the RF is done properly, which these days it usually is, there is no way that I know of that will detect RF or EMF within inches of the device, let alone outside, through a stone wall and the body of a van.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2445153/Are-TV-detector-vans-just-cunning-trick-For-decades-claimed-trap-licence-cheats-In-fact-theyve-led-single-prosecution.html
This is why we have class action lawyers in the U.S. But I suppose the NSA programs are the equivalent on a far larger budget scale. Oh, this is not about national security.
Actually, the old analog TV’s in the wooden cabinets, later plastic, leaked like a sieve. The trucks look like they’re picking up the leakage from the IF strips, a standardized frequency no matter what channel you watched on 21 or 42Mhz. The 4.5 Mhz sound IF FM could also be picked up, the difference frequency between the AM picture carrier and FM sound carrier on every channel (different but standardized on every analog TV in a country). Any of the three systems radiated like hell as any AM radio listener nearby can attest listening to the horizontal oscillator’s horrible harmonics output from the high voltage section (harmonics every 15.575 Khz across the AM radio band buzzing away). During these times, it was easy to spot a running TV and, with a little tuning, you could listen to the audio on its audio IF frequency to tell which channel it was tuned to.
Today, however, in digital land without all the IF strips, high voltage horizontal sections, etc., I think the trucks are old time bullshit, UNLESS the UK govt has forcibly installed a transmitter in each TV sold in the UK to entrap users. Maybe that’s what’s in the new units….a kind of cellphone transmitter to a central station….real easy to do.
Larry W4CSC. Ham since 1957 (I was 11). Broadcasting and military electronics for over 40 years.
Thanks Larry for the explanation. I thought our folks in the US were monitored somehow like a poll to get an idea how popular certain programs were.
If the BBC would stay out of politics and out of peoples’ pockets, they do some excellent work otherwise.
Ah yes – David Attenborough – http://www.express.co.uk/news/nature/549682/David-Attenborough-climate-change-evidence-overhwhelming
I must change a few things in the article, we dont pay a TV tax in OZ but the federal Government gives the “Their” ABC lot’s of money, the rest is mostly the same 100% warmist/marxist. Abolishing/selling/commercializing the entity would save a lot of money and heartache, probably increase unemployment… and send a couple of “latte” supplier to the wall. On the other hand we might end up with an ABC that has to compete in the real world, “Katmandu” and “WotIf” dont have that much money to throw at the green left. They will have to sharpen their act. Let’s hope…
‘Goons,’ are not government employees, they work for Capita, a private company. When you buy a TV in the UK, you are obliged to give your name and address, I pay with money and give them a false address.
I would assume that Monty Python TV was a BBC production. That seems to be their best work if that is true…
Yes it was, and they have gone on record as saying that some of the stuff they did then would never be allowed now.
Too bad you folks don’t get commercials on the TV. Many of the commercials are better than the programs. Although they don’t have to be to be very good to be better.
Only government and the idiots who often inhabit it’s offices are capable of such mind-numbing stupidity. Why people willingly give them more and more power is beyond me because you can always say no to the local cable provider but you can’t say no to Big Government. Comcast can’t throw me in jail or fine me.
If the trend in the UK is anything like the US, the tax will take care of itself. More and more people simply get their entertainment over the internet and forego cable programming. Even this humble 54 year old Yank has pulled the plug on Comcast.
So come on all you brave Brits, the chaps who stood up to the Hun and then the Nazis with unmatched courage and defiance, the great isle that ruled the seas until the good ole USA showed you the door back in 1783, and again in 1812. ( although you might consider coming back and burning the White House and the Capitol again, I’d be obliged). Are you going to submit to threats of violence from your so called countrymen in little gray mini vans merely to be able to watch the knee deep crap on the tele?
Are you going to voluntarily give your masters 250 bucks a year to have your common sense abused each and every day?
When that little van shows up at your home with that curly headed cockhold princess inside, get out in front of it, reach down and give the ole twig ‘n berries a tug and yell, “Suck my Crotch, I won’t watch!”
Grant, are you aware that in 1812 the USA declared war on the Great Britain? IIRC the only major battle the US won was two months after the war officially ended. That and taking Toronto for a day. You can take Toronto any day you like, now.
The US declaration of war was in response to British orders in council, promoting impressment of American citizens into the Royal Navy. The UK reversed the policy officially before the declaration passed, but that probably wouldn’t have stopped the practice.
The Battle of New Orleans was on Jan 8, 1815. The war ended on Dec 24, 1814. Moreover, that victory headed off secret British plans to make inroads into the “West”, ie beyond the Appalachians, with the aid of Indian leaders, despite the formal peace agreement.
There were plenty of US victories besides New Orleans, even some I’d call major, such as naval battle on the Great Lakes and combined ops at Baltimore. The small regular US army was deployed all wrong at the outset, which is one reason why the British and Indians were able to bluff old General Hull into surrendering Detroit. He didn’t know a relief column was close.
Had the army been in Maine instead of Michigan, the British would have been in trouble. As it was, our militia (including Jefferson’s brain dead naval militia-manned gunboats, the disgusting “Jeffs”, instead of a larger real navy) system and muddling led to our capitol being burnt down.
Yes but we we provoked! Imagine this’d poor kids pressed into service to the King, and of course England opposed our westward expansion.
I realized y’all were busy elsewhere but a win’s a win.
Does Robin Ford come with?
The TV tax in the UK applies to live streaming on smart devices these days. So that’s PC’s, phones and the like and, believe it or not, mains powered radios.
Back in the 60s a school friend of mine built a device that detected detector vans. The vans needed to use a different intermediate frequency from the one in TV sets that they were detecting, so he built a detector for that frequency. TV got switched off automatically if a van was detected, and because their gear was more powerful, he saw them before they saw him.
Martin, that’s funny! It will be very interesting to see what happens when the hated TV tax (which spread like a cancer to all the Colonies except Canada) is retired. If the broadcaster starts having to consider what people want to hear instead of the government’s view of life, the universe and and everything, the impact will be dramatic (pun intended).
Later on in rural Wales, this rig with aerials turned up in the village. Half of us rushed off to buy a licence, then it was discovered that the van was only doing signal-strength testing for a commercial station. Narrow escape for the driver and vehicle. After that they had a sign on the window explaining the purpose of the vehicle.
During the Faulklands War the same village found a solution to low-flying aircraft. Both barrels of a 12-gauge as a Harrier flew over. Must have set off the on-board alarms, as the spooks turned up a few days later. Everyone had cleaned their shotgun, no one dobbed the perpetrator in, and the chimney-height fly-overs were never repeated.