Guest essay by Eric Worrall
Days before a national election, Prime Minister Boris Johnson has done the unthinkable, and threatened the guaranteed income of one of the most brutally coercive and climate partisan state funded broadcasting bodies in the Western world.
Boris to Consider Abolishing BBC Television Tax
VICTORIA FRIEDMAN 10 Dec 2019
Prime Minister Boris Johnson has questioned whether taxing everyone who has a television to fund the BBC is justifiable, saying that a new Conservative government would look into scrapping the TV licence fee.
Prime Minister Johnson made the comments during a rally in Sunderland on Monday, saying he was “certainly looking at it”.
He continued: “You have to ask yourself if that kind of approach to funding a media organisation still makes sense on the long-term given the way other organisations manage to fund themselves?”
“The system by funding out of what is effectively a general tax on everybody who has a TV, it bears reflection, let me put it that way. How long can you justify a system whereby everybody who has a TV has to pay to fund a particular set of channels?” he added.
"I am certainly looking at it… how long can you justify a system whereby everybody who has a TV has to pay to fund a particular set of channels?"
— BBC Politics (@BBCPolitics) December 9, 2019
Boris Johnson is asked whether he would abolish the BBC licence fee, during a Q&A in Tyne and Wearhttps://t.co/BHbg7pnNBm pic.twitter.com/7HuUFAeIx3…
Read more: https://www.breitbart.com/europe/2019/12/10/boris-to-consider-abolishing-bbc-television-tax/
I doubt Boris Johnson will actually follow through, promising to consider abolishing the license fee is not a real commitment. If Boris Johnson actually abolished the license fee he would face a significant backlash from rich urban greens, who are well served by the BBC’s partisanship.
But the fact Boris thinks he might win a few votes by threatening the BBC shows how deeply unpopular they have become in some quarters. The internet is bursting at the seams with videos of BBC unpleasantness, like the following video of BBC license fee collectors using police as backup for their debt collection.
People who can barely afford to feed their kids and heat their homes have no patience for the regressive BBC license fee, and their thuggish collection techniques.
I strongly suspect the BBC’s days as a government supported broadcaster are numbered.
We so need a man like this in Canada!
And in AU. The ABC is by law supposed to be unbiased but for my entire life it seems not so, and worse (or zero) the last 20 years. We should all lobby for it. Once the BBC goes under hopefully CAN and AU will follow suit.
Just needs ScoMo to bundle up Aunty and SBS and stick it up for sale promising to put that and the $1.5bill a year recurrent expenditure into upgrading the NBN and he’d be on a winner. Divide and conquer with these lefties.
PBS is also gvt funded. However it’s viewership is so low as to almost not be on the radar.
Quite so, but in Canada, things are different. The government directly pays the CBC whether people watch it or not, and they mostly don’t. The government also pays the press $600 million over 5 years to keep them in line too, and it shows.
Robert Australian taxpayers pay a billion dollars a year for the privilege of a far left organisation. The propaganda that is aired daily on the ABC is nothing short of criminal. There is only one point of view, and it’s all leftist thinking.
ABC is hated by a large proportion of the Australian community and when it’s promoted they have the gall to call it “Your ABC”. That’s only because we are forced to pay for it, not because we want it.
Amen, Megs
@ Justin Birch
You are supposing that he will carry through on his words. If by chance he wins tomorrow’s election, wait and see how his promised Brexit pans out in the next couple of years. An awful lot of people, in desperation, have swallowed his promise but many others have said his version of Brexit is almost identical to May’s, with the exception of the Irish question, and it will tie Britain to the EU almost as tightly as present – and without the freedom to make her own trade deals, unless approved by Brussels.
Even if you did get a man like this (Boris) in Canada, the appointment would undoubtedly entail him also having an advisor like Sir Humphrey from “Yes Minister” to manipulate policy back to leftist ideologies.
This are the public services we’re talking about, remember.
No you don’t. We in the UK and AU, as well as Canada, need a Trump. Boris is cut from the same cloth as the “elite”, he will screw the Brits over.
?? A proven liar, narcissist, coward and general buffoon who seems to be entirely devoid of principle? He’s not threatening the BBC because it’s spouting the conventional line (also the government’s position, which the BBC would be expected to follow) on global warming, he’s only putting a warning shot across their bows to pressure them into being even more supportive of his politics/policies – to the extent that he has any, beyond self serving platitudes. The real mission of the BBC has always been to advance Britain’s interests in the world by creating for itself as well as it can, a reputation for gold standard honesty and fairness (for which it’s known across much of the world – excepting in the mind of AGW sceptics and those who are aware of what it’s about) so that it can, when needed, dispense propaganda effectively on behalf of the British state. It’s the british version of RT. Savvy Scots and Irish know exactly what the BBC is and the lengths it goes to in order to advance the interests of England (the reality behind the myth building title Great Britain) against theirs.
Johnson may also of course be considering the pressure he’s under from the USCC and from Rupert Murdoch to dismantle it, in order that it can be exploited for profit, or disposed of as competition. The Home Office and Foreign Office staff , and the security services, who are probably much more aware of the real function of the BBC than Johnson – despite his short and ill fated tenure as Foreign Secretary, will no doubt attempt to preserve it, regardless of the temptations/pressures Johnson is subjected to.
In the UK we have channel 4, “a British public-service free-to-air television network headquartered in London, United Kingdom”
Check out it’s science news page
https://www.channel4.com/news/science
They’ll just be smaller, it won’t stop them.
This would be brilliant, as it costs more and more every other year, and all I get is climate change rubbish!! Bbc radio is good though and I will continue to listen to it..
BBC don’t seem able to make any program, TV or Radio, without finding a way to insert Climate Change – only exception is period drama but there they now insist on writing in a BAME quota regardless of historical inaccuracy .
Presenter-led programmes are overloaded with presenters as they fill their own BAME LGBT PC targets- and license fee pays for this deliberste and unrepresentative social manipulation.
CBC only has three story lines, catastrophic climate extremism, LBGQT sexual predilections and “my victmitude is greater than your victimitude”, (with points 2 and 3 often overlapping).
BBC has many employees. They have pensions. To cover this pension obligation, BBC takes its pension money and allows an investment manager to invest it so there is money to cover the pensions.
Not all of us understand this “investment management” deal. Consider: you win the lottery of a million dollars. If you can “invest” it and get 10% return each year, that would be $100,000. You could keep the million invested, never touching it, and live off of the 100K per year. But, you would have to know what to invest in. Make a mistake, and your million becomes 800,000. Now, you are living off of $80,000. If it drops the next year, due to poor choices, you have $600,000 invested, and you get to live off of $60,000. Not too shabby, but quite a different lifestyle compared to $100,000.
This is the boat BBC is in. If their investment fund shrinks, they have to stretch $60,000 versus $100,000, so to speak, to cover the retirements of many people. So, this investment fund is very precious to them.
BBC pensions are managed by Generation Investment Management, LLC. They manage investments for “very large institutional investors.” Very big companies, governments.
Who is GIM, LLC?
Al Gore.
Now, if BBC and Al Gore can keep up the hype, they mutually do well!! If they convince all countries to invest in Green, then they really boost, and entrench, the market for Green!
In fact, there is a movement to get major investors to commit to “green!” Web search for “Principles for Responsible Investment.”
Now, do you see how BBC depends on everyone believing CAGW?
But you don’t pay for the radio or cat license?
There is no such thing as a bloody cat license, you don’t need one! (A bee License, on the other hand…..) 😉
There bloody well is and I’ve got one! Look!
That BBC TV tax is Kafkaesque.
In most developed countries, all taxpayers pays for state tv. In the UK, you can choose not to, if you don’t watch tv (which I don’t).
Here in Oz, for example, I have to pay the ‘TV Tax’ through other taxes even though I don’t watch tv.
It seems fairer in the UK.
I disagree that it’s fairer.
In the UK (as I understand it) if you have a TV at all, you are required to pay the tax. Even if it’s not connected to the antenna and can’t receive any broadcast at all.
In Australia we pay for ABC, but we can ignore it watch any other channel or DVD’s to our pleasure. The UK doesn’t have that feature. It’s all or nothing.
No, it’s not like that.
If the tv is not tuned to the bbc, you don’t have to pay the fee. I think with a lot of services now they provide access to the bbc channels too, so you have to pay.
I had a vcr and tv with no ariel connected. No fee needed to be paid.
That is utter nonsense. If you have a TV, you have to pay the licence fee- hence the term, ‘TV Licence’, not ‘BBC Licence’. If what you claim were true, no one would be paying it. Even if you have no TV they will assume you have and demand you pay up and you have to prove that you don’t have one. I know this from personal experience! If you buy a TV the retailer has to take your details and pass them on to the relevant authority so that they can check whether you have a licence. If you watch BBC programmes on a PC you need a licence- no getting round it. I rarely watch the BBC but this makes no difference. Zig Zag, I promise you that if you go into a retailer and buy a new TV you will have to buy a licence- and if you don’t you’ll be getting a visit. Free country, eh?
Andy Mansell is correct.
UK TV Licensing
https://www.tvlicensing.co.uk/check-if-you-need-one
Watching live TV on NOW TV, YouTube, Amazon Prime or any online TV service? Watch out if you haven’t got a TV Licence. Get yours now
The law says you need to be covered by a TV Licence to:
watch or record programmes as they’re being shown on TV, on any channel
watch or stream programmes live on an online TV service (such as ITV Hub, All 4, YouTube, Amazon Prime Video, Now TV, Sky Go, etc.)
download or watch any BBC programmes on iPlayer.
This applies to any device you use, including a TV, desktop computer, laptop, mobile phone, tablet, games console, digital box or DVD/VHS recorder.
*
Back in the days of analogue TV, the BiBiC used to run TV adverts showing the “TV detector vans” which were allegedly used as part of the TV Licensing enforcement effort to detect “illegal TV watchers” who were using their sets without a licence.
These vans were shown with a large aerial installation on their roofs, which, allegedly could be directed at any room in any building to detect the predictable intermediate frequency of the TV tuner’s IF oscillator, for any given TV channel.
I have no idea if these “detector vans” were in fact a reality or were propaganda, but that was the state of play, as it were in the People’s Republic of United Kingdomski …
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dqwbrX8uhEE
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8NmdUcmLFkw
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KnlYiFxuat4
MG
Zig Zag is correct.
In the UK you only need a TV license if you are watching or recording live TV or watch IPlayer.
If you never watch the BBC and only watch programmes using other channels’ catch-up services, it’s possible to legally ditch the TV licence and save yourself £154.50 a year.
Also as long as you only watch pre-recorded videos or DVDs there is no license to pay.
I haven’t had a TV license for years as I haven’t watched the BBC for years. Not because of bias but because the quality of their programmes has gone from very high to abysmally low.
I had a tv in the uk for years. I was inspected twice. I never had to pay the licence fee.
They used to try to force you to give your address when buying a tv (so you could be put on the list if you didn’t have a licence), but I always refused and the had to end up putting the shop’s address in instead. They can’t force you to give an address not part a licence.
It is for receiving broadcast TV which does include livestreams on the internet – it is NOT for owning a tv. I have a few TVs that can be computer monitors and if fact both my current monitors are just that so you can’t have a tax on owning a TV. Most of those caught are actually dumb enough to have a visible TV from outside or have it on when the Crapita gang call. And they also tend to be women because I think they are more likely to be at home during working hours when they call. They can get a search warrant but as far as I know this has never happened. As far as a suggestion of making it not a criminal offence goes, I would suggest that is not a good idea as if it is purely a civil matter you can expect lots of law breaking by Crapita.
The “TV licence” is only required if you watch live TV on any device using any service, streaming or otherwise, or watch BBC iPlayer.
Andy Mansell is correct stating that TV retailers ask for your postcode. I did not know that you can just refuse to give it. He is not correct stating that you need a licence just because you own a TV.
The way that the TVLicensing.co.uk text is worded appears to be deliberately misleading.
MG
If the tv is not tuned to the bbc, you don’t have to pay the fee
not entirely accurate. If it’s being used for *any* live TV (not just the BBC)
https://www.tvlicensing.co.uk/faqs/FAQ104
“Remember, if you watch or record programmes as they’re being shown on TV, on any channel or TV service, or download or watch any BBC programmes on iPlayer, you need to be covered by a TV Licence.
Live TV means any programme you watch or record as it’s being shown on TV or live on an online TV service. It’s not just live events like sport, news and music. It also covers soaps, series, documentaries and even movies.”
I had a vcr and tv with no ariel connected. No fee needed to be paid
and that’s how you were able to not pay the fee, you could prove (when they inspected you, twice) that your TV wasn’t being used as a TV for showing broadcast programming because you didn’t have an ariel (and thus couldn’t pick up the broadcasts). But it is very much a you are guilty until you prove you are innocent thing. If you have a TV they assume that you need a license (even if you don’t have a TV, they’ll assume you do) until you prove to their satisfaction otherwise, and even then they’ll likely be back again to make you prove it all over again.
A TV tax is included in the French taxe d’habitation unless you can prove you don’t have a television set.
Same in Italy.
I pay there because italian bureaucracy is an absolute nightmare. It’s just not worth the agro.
We don’t have state run TV here. Instead, large portions of the American media have become the propaganda arm for the Democratic party which acted more like Pravda during the Obama administration and which now acts more like the National Enquirer.
Here in the USA, media are pathetic. They are very tied into the Communism and crony corruption from the government. I know that there are many that are sympathetic to all of the communism, but I suspect that there are bigger ties.
We only have a few media companies that own most all of the major media. The top of these companies could have deals with our entrenched “deep state” government. At times, the media coverage of stuff is so predictably biased it is uncanny. The “mashup” videos of reporters using the same descriptor instantaneously are scary. An event happens one day, and the next, everyone is saying the same phrase: “bombshell,” or “walls closing in.”
Yesterday 12-11 we had media coverage of our Fake Russia Fake Ukraine problems. The TV news companies were caught cutting away from live broadcast when a conservative came up, and going back to live when the liberal came up. Unabashed.
Govt could be funneling money to media in a way that would be hard to detect: via advertisers. Somehow, govt gets manor money to a company. They then do a huge buy of media, and the channel stays afloat for another day. To give an example, govt buys many vehicles from the auto companies. So, money going to auto company looks normal. And, auto companies have always been major advertisers. Auto company income is on the books at the media company and nothing looks abnormal. But maybe it is 30% more than it would have been. This could be the tie-in.
Then, there are many stories of stories getting silenced because management does not want to hear it. NBC anchor Amy Robach got caught on open mic complaining that ABC quashed a great Epstein sexual abuse story. she was upset because they did good work, it got quashed, and someone else got the scoop. Moral: management has content control.
Also, our FBI caught with lots of examples of getting sporting event tickets, meals, trips, from media people – in exchange for scoops on stories. A big national disgrace.
The closest the US has to “state run TV” is PBS. And that is primarily funded through private donations from listeners and viewers (mostly collected during the semi-annual pledge drives), foundations and corporate sponsorship.
It does receive a small part of it funding from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB), which is a government funded non-profit set up by the Public Broadcasting Act of 1967. 95% of the CPB’s annual appropriation goes directly to content development, community services, and other local station and system needs (for example, it provided funds to help PBS stations to make the switch from analog to digital)
We on the State Pension were exempted from paying the “licence fee”, payment is now being reinstated.
However, I no longer watch BBC TV, why would I when I have a multiplicity of sources of information and entertainment?
I am applying for exemption, which is available.
Unfortunately, the licence fee exemption was not granted to all state pensioners. It was only those over 74.
And from next June the exemption will only apply to people over 74 on state benefits.
I.e. if you are self reliant and not a burden on the state you have to pay to be propagandised.
Bread and circuses modern form.
This is news that is music to my ears. I have been calling for the privatization of the BBC for years, and the abolition of the TV license fee would be the first step in that direction – the right direction, in my opinion. I hope Boris follows through if he secures a Conservative majority. The BBC is just another propaganda arm of the warmest elites; if they want to spew out some of this kind of nonsense, let them compete for the advertising dollar just like the other TV networks.
They’re is no talk of privatisation. They will just fund the BBC through other taxes, like most developed countries.
Governments fund a “National” media for propaganda purposes.
The more developed the country, the more cash flows to the Directorate of Information.
Here in the free world we call that government propaganda.
Or sometimes The Ministry of Truth.
I noticed you said “developed” world as if that didn’t include dictatorial and other tyrannical regimes.
I only stated developed since in not sure about developing countries. I’ve lived in India but never watched tv there.
Boris is only trying to ape BREXIT Party policies to steal votes of Farage, see here:
“… On 22 November 2019, the Brexit Party set out its policy proposals for the 2019 UK general election. Some of its key polices for the election include:
No extension to the Brexit transition period
No privatisation of the NHS
Reducing immigration
Cutting VAT on domestic fuel
Banning the UK exporting its waste
Providing free broadband in deprived regions
Scrapping the television licence fee
Abolishing inheritance tax
Scrapping High Speed 2 (HS2)
Abolishing interest on student loans
Changing planning to help house building
Reforming the Supreme Court
Reform the voting system to make it more representative
Abolish the House of Lords
Make MPs who switch parties subject to recall petitions
Reform the postal voting system to combat fraud
Introduce Citizens’ Initiatives to allow people to call referendums, subject to a 5 million threshold of registered voter signatures and time limitations on repeat votes
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brexit_Party
Boris doesn’t mean it, he’s playing a game here to trick people into not voting for the BREXIT Party. Note that Boris is only saying he’s “thinking about it”, it’s not a part of his agenda, but he wants to pretend it is, with out actually saying he will do it. And using the last 24 hours to try and slip that one in on everyone – i.e. he’s deceiving everyone only to try to prevent Farage from getting the balance-of-power after a Boris and Co win.
Correct! Again, since 1973, the UK public and voters, are being screwed!
Defunding irresponsible environmental scare mongering is one of the best strategies to get back to common sense, and the BBC, CBC, ABC all deserve corrective action. And what about that useless UN? May be Trump can do us all a favour and put them on a strict fiscal diet too.
In Canada, Max Bernier and the PPC still are out to stop funding of the UN.
Happy Britons!
In Germany we are forced by law to fund the Central Disinformation System ARD and ZDF simply be living in a flat! No TV set needed! Just having four walls around you is sufficient! People have been jailed for not complying!
R. F.
By the way, I can hardly imagine that BBC is more aggressively promoting the AGW scam than they do!
Not exactly, you pay also if you are homeless and they do not grant you any exceptions. You can be excempted, but must not.
When I was stationed in Germany in the mid-1980s, I remember that. They didn’t make U.S. military servicemembers pay though. Back then, when we all had CRT TVs, the Germans had a much better color system than we did. They had PAL, where as the US system was NTSC. Even though we had the Armed Forces Television network, I kind of enjoyed watching German TV. They crammed all the shows and movies between commercials (commercial free). I liked the news, since it seemed more up to date. One of the variety shows (comedy) that I liked to watch was “Bananas”. German seemed to be a fairly easy language to pick up on. Since I was stationed on the border with Denmark, I could watch Danish TV as well. The Danes had a lot of shows in English.
Well it is all about the money all the time now isn’t it. But we play the pretend games to cover that fact up half the time in order to confuse with a mixed picture.
Like in Australia I have wondered about the wisdom of an elected government financing their political opponent through support for the public broadcaster. People were gobsmacked at the $10s of millions Palmer put into his campaign as a private individual but that was petty cash compared to the hundreds of millions that taxpayers have put in year after year to the Labor and Green campaigns through the government’s funding of the ABC.
I think with Palmer people were also gobsmacked that he put so much money into a campaign that said so little, made him look like a fool and, even when the spirit of the message was valid (aka “China is not our friend”) the method of telling it were junk science.
Palmer also did himself no favours by having previously been elected on massive shining promises and fallen flat on his ego. Politically he was useless.
Apart from that, the ABC? Yeah, your points are valid. Personally I would happily see that burnt to the ground and never replaced.
Me too, Craig. Useless bunch of propagandists.
I like the repetition of the video, a fitting tribute to much of the BBC output which consists of repeats. If Boris Johnson does win the General Election then I hope the BBC will be in for a rough time. The BBC is so unbalanced in its political reporting we have virtually stopped watching or listening to it. There are phrases used in reporting that superficially could be interpreted as fair presentation but contain a consistant bias towards the praising the political left. It can be as straighforward as presenting a moderate left idea as normal but contrary moderate right idea as extreme or distasteful or ill conceived. All straight out of Orwell’s 1984 where Room 101 was supposedly named a conference room in the BBC.
He’s bluffing. He only mentioned it to distract the headlines from his latest crime.
Remember, earlier in that very day he was caught stealing a journalist’s phone. The journo was trying to show him a photo of the effect of his policies and Boris thought he’d pocket the phone it was shown on.
A PR disaster!
He has had problems throughout the campaign with his criminality. He has been accused of hate speech for printing articles about picaninnies and batty-boys. This was brought up in the debates.
And before that the police had to intervene when he was heard beating up his girlfriend.
So the Tor party tried claiming that an aide was punched by a lefty activist. Unfortunately that was proven to be a lie as it had been filmed with out them knowing it .
So an hour later they tried saying “Media folk will lose funding”. It distracted a few of the metropolitan journalists.
But the Tories didn’t mean it.
M Courtney
Did you even read the picaninnies article? No, thought not. It was a satirical dig at Tony Blair, and it was 11 years ago!
Nor was there any evidence he was “beating up his girlfriend”. Next you’ll be reciting your own version of his ‘letterbox’ comment, without having read the full article.
Meanwhile, you give the socialist, Anti Semitic, IRA and Hamas loving Marxist, Corbyn, a free pass.
But Boris said “picaninnies”. Oh dear me, whatever will we do. Tell you what, lets just vote for a socialist, Anti Semitic, IRA and Hamas loving, Marxist worshipper, he’s much less offensive!
He did it because removing that TV TAX is actually a core policy of Farage’s BREXIT-Party.
Boris is desperate to prevent Farage from gaining the balance-of-power over Govt legislation, or even needing to enter into a coalition with Farage to form a Govt. Boris never said he would get rid of the TV tax, just thinking about it, while Farage’s party has promised that they will do it. So a vote for Farage will get the TV tax overturned, but a vote of Boris probably won’t get that.
He’s bluffing?
https://www.theguardian.com/media/2019/oct/16/nicky-morgan-open-minded-about-bbc-licence-fee-future
As for the rest of your screed…the rantings of someone who sees the writing on the wall.
Rich urban greens don’t vote Conservative.
Not paying your licence fee is a criminal offence.
The majority of convictions are elderly women.
Go for it Boris.
And privatise Chanel 4 at the same time.
In the UK one does not need a television license to own a television. A license is not required if one uses it to watch DVD’s or as display for a computer. A license is only required if one uses the television to receive off air, satellite or cable transmissions. Note using a VCR plus display counts as a television if one is using it to receive off air transmissions etc A computer executing iplayer via a browser also requires a television license. Personally I would rather the television license was replaced by a BBC subscription. Reception of all other channels would not require a television license.
What a brilliant idea Donald, the Australian taxpayers cough up a billion dollars a year for ‘our ABC’.
We should make it available only by subscription! Given that our population is less than 25 million and if take out the little kids and the young people who only look at social media anyway. Then take out the majority of the rest of the population who can’t stand the constant left wing propaganda!
When I look at it that way it has stuck me that we are paying a billion dollars a year for a relatively small number of people, greens and other far left groups to spout propaganda that most of us don’t believe in.
And get this, they have recently announced that they will not be televising the upcoming Olympic Games because they don’t have the funding!
Someone’s earnings big bucks, and most of us get no benefit whatsoever.
That is tiny compared to the UK revenue do the maths
Lets exclude half the population as non tax payers so 12.5 Million people taxpayers
ABC 2018-2019 budget $1,045.9 million / 12.5 Million People = $83.63 per person
See the UK license below £154.50 or about $300 AUD
So don’t complain 🙂
LdB Is the UK TV license per household or per person? Obviously that would make a difference.
That aside, (it’s not a competition), we are paying all that money for something most of us don’t even want to promote something we strongly disagree with.
Per device now for live broadcasts, even mains radio. Portable, transistor radios excluded.
The license fee is per household
If you are over 74 and on state benefits you get a free TV licence.
If you are self reliant and over 74 you will from next June have to pay to be propagandised.
Oh that’s OK. They’ll still have Little Miss Greta Scoldilocks Thunberg! I mean she is now Times “Person of the year” and has to be better than “Sir” David Attenborough at selling catastrophic climate change. Of course Time is so shallow that they can’t see that poor ignorant girl has been turned into nothing more than a deranged sock puppet by her parents and handlers. Or perhaps they do understand she is being abused but don’t care? Anything for the cause you know. It’s “for the children after all! Anyway, I put as much stock in Times person of year as I do the Nobel “Peace” Prize, which is exactly none, zilch, nada but one would think Times would at least pick someone that has actually changed the world or some portion of it in some way. Greta has just replaced Al Gore. Oh wait!!!
I suspect Greta interest has now peaked at her latest speech at COP25 even a lot of delegates didn’t attend and the conference hall had many empty seats. It was an interesting speech since the main audience was delegates who would probably feel they are working hard. She echoed what most here have been saying that all the COP25 negotiations are “creative PR” and “find loopholes exercise”. It only got moderate applause and I suspect many of the delegates felt quite insulted and undervalued.
Her basic argument was straight from the IPCC that we need to cut emissions 7% per year starting now. Small error it’s actually more like 11% because developing nations are already committed to increase and they aren’t subject to doing anything. None of that is obviously going to happen so her great hope was young and caring people were going to rise up around the world and overthrow the politicians and corporations around the world.
It’s a lovely childrens dream but as those in HongKong will tell you even having numbers on your side doesn’t mean much and the supporter base in most countries is probably 5-15%. She probably needs to channel some Martin Luther King Jr and go with the “I have a dream” speech.
Greta supposedly came to Europe on the Vagabonde but on their youtube page ‘Sailing La Vagabonde’ it is not mentioned. Strange for people who don’t stop showing their life to the public.
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCZdQjaSoLjIzFnWsDQOv4ww/videos?disable_polymer=1
Clueless American here. If I were a British resident, and I did not own a television, but I used my laptop to watch Netflix would I have to pay the fee?
Technically, No.
It’s explained here.
https://inews.co.uk/culture/television/do-i-need-tv-licence-how-much-cost-uk-watch-netflix-amazon-prime-127686
The word “Technically” carries a lot of weight. Is that mean your answer is good advice or will you be hounded for the fee?
Yes, you probably will be hounded, since they assume everyone has a TV and you have to prove that you don’t. I’ve been in this position and they simply refuse to believe that you have no TV- so you have to prove that you don’t or they just assume that you do. If you prove that you have no TV then of course you don’t have to pay.
Doesn’t look like the guy in the video had to prove anything. Apparently the cop was in on the racket, the let’s go inside suggestions, trying to get him to waive his right to a real warrant. Means he knew it wasn’t legal. Bet, you won’t see that on BBC.
So how much does a typical TV owner pay/year in BBC license fees? Is it per TV or per household? Any additional compliance costs? Is anyone exempted?
Its in the article linked above £154.50 which is about $200 USD
Sadly, the BBC reports today the passing of a much loved presenter and naturalist, David Bellamy.
To their partial credit they report
What they fail to report is that his dedication to scientific principles, and thinking that the BBC should actually obey their legally-mandated charter of impartiality, earned him the sack. His BBC career ended abruptly.
Currently, next to the report of his death, the BBC has a story about an ignorant schoolgirl from Sweden winning some Time Person of the year award or something for blathering about global warming.
Boris Johnson, as the likely continuing Prime Minister, needs to be asked such questions about BBC funding more often. The topic will influence how I vote tomorrow.
The Time Magazine “Person of the Year” award (formerly the “Man of the Year”) is more about who is getting a lot of press rather than getting good press. A perusal of past winners indicates it’s not all good company.
The burning question is whether Greta is more upset at sharing this honor with three different Popes, or Adolph Hitler and Joseph Stalin (twice).
The Person of the Year award is even spottier than the Nobel Peace Prize.
“… is more about who is getting a lot of press rather than getting good press.”
In other media this is called ‘ret conning’ or ‘back peddling’.
Face it, Time Magazine has a track record of backing absolute failures and have tried to justify the choice by claiming they were simply drawing attention to the most significant person in the world at the time.
Still, when we talk about Time Magazine’s Man(Person) of the Year we can at least finally use the phrase ‘Literally Hitler’ correctly. If that is a win or not I am not sure, but at least we are grammatically correct for once.
David Bellamy was once as popular as David Attenborough: the difference in their career paths reflects the difference in their opinions on AGW. How many other TV and radio presenters have conformed to keep their jobs?
Attenborough, when he became BBC2 commissar, booted David Bellamy as quickly as he could. The BBC is infamous for covering up criminals, Jimmy Savile for instance.
Yeah right. Like the British would know what to do without TV explaining it to them.
They sure as hell don’t watch YouTube. You make an Internet video over there and they lock you up.
Ahh, yes. Almost forgot. Not paying the license fee is, legally, a criminal offence.
From wikipedia
I’ve seen higher figures quoted. As much as 15%.
Either way, the costs of paying the BBC to poison our minds with environmental political activism run higher than just the license fee alone.
That is actually an amazing amount of damage for a society to self inflict on it’s poor. I assume rich people don’t not pay it and get fined out of protest that it is basically the poor being targetted.
Usually, and common sensically, you would need a license to own or do something that is potentially dangerous. you need permission.
(like a car or a gun)
so why would any sane person need a license to watch the bbc ?
Thank Gawd!!!!! Silencing these lie spewing POS is a good first step. Putting their Humanity hating asses in concentration camps is the next, putting them to forced labor to actually help the “climate” is the second step. Harvesting sugar cane, cotton and rice by hand for the rest of their lives is exactly what they have earned. Human hating f**ks.
“Boris to Consider Abolishing BBC Television Tax.”
Doesn’t go nearly far enough. How about “Boris to Consider Abolishing BBC?” Or even “Boris, if elected, will Abolish BBC?”
BTW, I won’t be voting today. (As I haven’t in general elections for 32 years now). My local Brexit Party candidate was stood down, and for personal reasons he chose not to stand as an Independent. I regard all the four UK mainstream parties, Tories, Labour, Lib Dems and Greens, as merely different faces of one huge criminal gang.
” … Boris to Consider Abolishing BBC Television Tax … ”
—
Boris is only proposing this (without actually promising to do it) because it’s a core part of the BREXIT Party’s policy agenda.
i.e. he’s only trying to take votes away from Farage here.
And unless Farage wins the balance of power (which Boris is trying to stop by doing this) Labor would almost certainly block the elimination of the tax. In which case the real capacity to eliminate the BBC tax is to vote for the BREXIT Party, because Boris won’t be eliminating this tax any other way.
In other words, Boris thinks he can win at this point, but he wants to get a govt majority that doesn’t have to bargain with Farage … thus vote for Farage and you will actually get rid of that BBC tax, because Farage actually wants to do this, while Boris just wants to steal the vote, and most likely would do nothing thereafter.
I don’t get why labor would block this surely the tax hits the poor more than the rich?
In Australia we all complain about funding the ABC to the tune of $1B but in reality the poor pay nothing because you have to first exceed the tax free threshhold and then the amount you pay is dependent on how much you earn beyond that. So in some ways middle and upper class Australia pay for the poor to have free TV.
That should be more than obvious, the Left are not going to vote their own leftist-agenda promoting propaganda outlet to be starved of funds.
In Australia we all complain about funding the ABC to the tune of $1B but in reality the poor pay nothing because you have to first exceed the tax free threshhold and then the amount you pay is dependent on how much you earn beyond that. So in some ways middle and upper class Australia pay for the poor to have free TV.
—
huh?
Incorrect. Everyone buying anything in Australia pays GST, irrespective of income level, and numerous other inescapable surcharges and stamp-duties as well. And what does income level have to do with this topic of abolishing UK TV tax?
In Australia, GST at 10%, is applied to certain items, products and consumables, not all, unlike NZ, which GST at 15% is applied to EVERYTHING except female sanitary products.
Correct Patrick, not everything, just almost everything.
Well if the states/territories had followed the federal Govn’t and abolished all other sales taxes in favour of GST, which they said they would, GST would not be a problem. So we have all kinds of stamp duty, sales tax and the like PLUS GST!
Well done Australian state/territory pollies!
Cut the fee by 30% this year, again the next year, and so on
Time for President Trump to stop government funding of PBS/NPR. Can’t possibly see why us taxpayers have to continue paying for this. Same global warming babble.
The way to do it is, as a first step, to remove the monopoly on access to the subsidy Put it into a separate contestable fund, and let the BBC bid for it against others and allow them to run advertising.
If possible sell down the government’s share in the BBC to others more experienced in running commercial media and thereby reduce the risk of the transition.
I don’t think “Rich Urban Greens” are exactly Boris Johnson’s voter base. He wouldn’t be losing much with following through with defunding the Beeb.
Some of us UK TV viewers, who have to pay an annual TV licence fee of £154, on pain of fines, debt collectors, and / or imprisonment, consider that the most appropriate acronym for the British Bullshit Corporation is ont the BBC but the BibiC …
I used to count my self among the body of opinion that the advantages of the BiBiC’s traditionally, high quality output, outweighed the disadvantages of it’s clear and obvious political bias.
I no longer subscribe to this pov and would welcome the scrapping of BiBiC funding from compulsory TV licence fees.
The grotesque Rupert Murdoch’s of this world can fill the void, I care not because i don’t consume it to any significant degree and I have learned over the years to be very discerning of that which I do consume.
Mostly, the TV is switched off. I suggest more of us should use it that way and not be used by it.
Remember : The medium is the massage …
Oh and don’t be taken in by BJ’s cheeky grin …
MG
Agreed! IIRC, while in the UK, I only paid the tax twice.
Don’t consider it, just do it.
Every year 180,000 or so people are criminalised by the BBC for non-payment of the BBC license, and 30-odd are imprisoned.
1 in 10 court cases! no wonder the criminal justice system is congested.
https://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/599049/TV-Licence-jailed-England-BBC-fee-Scotland-fines
Abolition would delight me. I used to like radio 4; especially after it moved online when I could listen to podcast shows at my leisure. But now almost everything is produced by SJWs and CJWs. It’s Orwell’s Ministry of Truth.
Yeah, all great, except it won’t happen. Boris is exactly like our ScoMal here in Australia. Talk a great talk at election time, afterwards nothing. From memory, one of ScoMal’s advisers was sent to the UK to help Boris with the election, and you can see the same playbook unfolding exactly.
When JFK was assassinated, the Beeb postponed the Harry Worth comedy program for a whole 15 minutes before continuing with its broadcast.
(The usual response would have been immediate respectful solemn music with images of the great deceased, followed by an obituary intoned by Richard Dimbleby.)
The Beeb has not always been Leftie in its responses.
Expect Boris to copy-cat Norway.
BBC will be financed over the tax bill and the money appropriated by reducing taxpayers deductible amounts/personal allowance, say with £1000 per employee, value £200 per employee in the 20% tax bracket.
Yes, you will pay for BBC. As will your wife, your daughters and your parents. Everyone with an income will pay.
Oddgeir
I have not read all the comments, but in the ones I have read, the elephant in the room is missing.
Around 30% of UK voters are today going to vote for an anti-semitic party, headed by a Marxist anti-semite. A man who has associated with terrorists of all persuasions, whether Irish, Islamic or whatever. A man who has shared platforms with Holocaust deniers. With a top team who have approved of mob violence towards political opponents, opposed the Northern Ireland Good Friday Agreement, who have lamented the fall of East Germany and excused the Soviet Holocaust(s) as they praised the supposed achievements of that regime.
The lieading liberal paper in the UK, the Guardian, has endorsed this party.
The Labour Party in power, which may happen tomorrow morning, will mean that the BBC is continued and strengthened This party wants a state broadcaster. It would like it to be a monopoly broadcaster, but a state broadcaster will do for now.
It also proposes to bring about a state monopoly of Internet access. It will do this by nationalizing the largest Internet provider, and then giving fibre Internet to everyone in the country, free of charge. Thus putting all competitors out of business the next day.
What it wants is control. Of media, of information, of education providers (non-state schools will be abolished), of the curriculum.
When Eric writes “I strongly suspect the BBC’s days as a government supported broadcaster are numbered” he is assuming that it will be politics as usual in the UK after Friday.
There is a good chance that it will not be. There is a good chance that the UK will have elected the equivalent of Eric Honecker, and that the new government will come trailing a cloud behind it. In that cloud will be exchange controls, surveillance, a secret police, travel limitations, property seizures. And ethnic cleansing, starting with the Jews. But not stopping with them. It never does.
And yes, it can happen there. All it takes is cowardice, blindness and wishful thinking of the sort you can see today in the Guardian.
Thankfully Labour didn’t take power, it was a landside for Boris J’s party. So your fears were not realized. Now, hopefully, Brexit will get done. Don’t know if the “BBC’s days as a government supported broadcaster are numbered” or not as eliminating BBC funding wasn’t what the conservatives were running on, but maybe it will get looked at, which is more than you could have hoped for had the election gone the other way.
https://metro.co.uk/2019/12/12/man-cancels-non-refundable-holiday-hes-been-looking-forward-to-for-64-years-because-hes-worried-about-the-planet-11771459/
He’s just been interviewed on BBC radio. A well travelled man, been to Antarctica the galapogas etc in the eco tourist mode. Has now got a consience and is following extinction rebellion.
Poor sap