BY ALEXIA JAMES
Hearing debates on the BBC about the BBC is sickening. They really cannot see the damage that the licence fee does to Britain’s poorest. How do they sleep at night?
- The single mother of three in Aldi tempted by an offer for two pounds off healthy mince but goes for a pack of cheap frozen sausages instead, as she knows that the change in her pocket is limited and that she must pop by the Post Office afterwards with her TV licence payment and to top up her electricity key meter.
- The old lady installing a peep hole in her front door after visits from TV Licence bailiffs. Now she does not feel at home in her own home. She has hidden the television in the cupboard under the stairs and whiles away her days in state of permanent worry and fear.
- A West Belfast Granny relieved to be back home after spending two nights in Hydebank prison over non-payment of TV licence fines. Ms Smith, a mother-of-four, was awaiting a double-hip replacement and has serious mobility issues as well as suffering from debilitating lung condition COPD. Despite appeals and an offer to pay off the £1,162 in fines, she was told she had to serve her sentence because a bench warrant had already been issued for her arrest.
- A fifty-year-old man on ESA who is off work to deal with his mental illness problems. He’s behind with the council tax and the TV licence. What else can he do but spend his days watching TV? Box sets keep him from thoughts of killing himself. He never watches the BBC. Certainly not after threatening letters from the BBC started dropping through his letterbox. Just looking at BBC millionaire presenters smiling away and talking about Bake Off makes him feel angry. He lives off microwave meals and his only luxury is the box sets and a packet of Rich Tea every few days. £154.50 is a fortune to him.
- The BBC relentlessly pursues its licence-fee billions. The BBC’s bullying now leads to one in ten of all magistrate hearings, a third of criminal cases brought against women – and children as young as ten ‘prosecuted’.
- How do the genuinely poor feel hearing stories about Samira Ahmed winning an equality case against her employer, the BBC, and getting a pay-out? Does it give them a warm feeling knowing the BBC will be using more of their hard-earned money to pay off another of their luvvies? Does BBC equal pay matter a damn to them?
The BBC is not thinking.
It’s in the same state of denial and ostrichism as the Labour Party. It cannot see how radical reform or death its only choices are. It carries on arguing for its future with its backs turned on its lifeblood – the paying British public.
“Millions love the BBC”, is the BBC’s response. Well then test that assumption and abolish the fee altogether? If the BBC is so confident that the British love the BBC then why not expose their popularity to the market?
“Ah, but the BBC is a great nurturer of talent”. Nish Kumar? Gary Linkere on over a million quid?
Jokes.
To every defence the BBC sends out there are ripostes that further bash nails in the BBC’s coffin. Their Britishness is not shared by many millions living in the British isles who are forced to pay for their repeats and preening. Their biased programming is neither watched or listened to by millions of Britons who are fed up to the back teeth of the woke, “progressive”, pathetic brew the BBC now offers.
Time the licence fee goes to help bring the genuinely poor out of poverty. Time the Government stopped forcing us to pay for something we don’t like and don’t need anymore. Time the BBC – if it still wants to be known as British – starts serving the people it claims to represent.
The licence fee – like the BBC itself – should be optional.