Clever politics - but not something to really loosen the fiscal squeeze

Verity

An excellent and astute post, Pete! Key.

Oor Wullie

A start has to be made somewhere.
Why not at the Beeb?

Marbury

In other words it's opportunistic, shallow, overly tactical and short-termist - just at the moment when Cameron needs to convince the voters that he isn't any of those things.

Harvey

The £3 saving is not the point. The BBC shouldn't have it's cushy funding guaranteed when every other part of the media is tightening it's belt. No doubt the Labour luvvies that infest the BBC will use this to carry on with the usual pro Government drivel they spout.

Peter Wilson

Isn't this more of a warning shot across the bows though.

In the last few months BBC bias has become more obvious; 'Cameron, last November, even wrote a newspaper article about the left wing bias in the BBC.

Recent Sunday's BBC programmes with Andrew Marr and the Politics show have not had a Tory shadow minister on for weeks. And there's countless other examples too of BBC bias; the most obvious example being 'Osbourne's Yachtgate'.

To me, with the Tories so far ahead in the polls, this is more of a warning to the BBC than anything else - 'we'll probably be the next Govt, so look out'.

Trevors Den

Agree with oor Willie.

As for 'clever politics' - its nothing to do with that, its just natural justice.

The main level of govt expenditure is of course important, but until the budget at the earliest there is nothing that can be said and really the actual truth of our circumstances will not be known until a new govt comes to power and unravels all Labours lies.

THX1138

I'm going to pay the full amount of the licence fee as a protest!

luke

You gotta laugh at this guy sometimes.

The VAT change was meaningless, but £3 for families is a great idea?

Verity

Maybe Cameron doesn't realise that £3 is of no consequence to "the little people", either.

What an utterly bizarre proposal.

Susan Hill

This is absolutely PATHETIC. In the long run yes, freeze the licence but ffs the country is in dire economic straits and the government is a shambles.. and he comes up with THIS ? Brown must be rolling about on the carpet with laughter. I`d have preferred it if he had announced that they would ensure the BBC became less partial and biased and totally leftist in its reporting. But this is a joke. Is there no serious opposition, no serious responsible right-wing agenda in this country now ?

Chuck Unsworth

Is the point of freezing the fee to reduce household expenditure or to warn the BBC about its profligacy - and maybe its political stance? I think it's the latter.

JohnAnt

A pitiful temporary non-increase of the BBC license fee - at a time of deflation?
A BBC cut as an 'example' of public spending cuts - when his own colleagues are pigging out on exes and unearned golden pensions?
FFS. Sound of feline laughter.

Hysteria

susan - to answer your question - no -

and this gives us a huge problem to deal with. I don't see an insurgency solving the problem but sometimes I wonder what we have left - why don't the tories "get it"???

TomTom

Simply de-criminalise the TV licence fee

David Ossitt

THX1138.

Come on THX; if you realy want to make a big protest you could pay our licence fee, as well.

Robin Norris

My first thought when i heard these proposals included 'Deckchairs' and 'Large Icebergs'.
I agree it is a warning shot across the BBC's bows but equally almost as effective as a 2 per cent reduction in VAT.
If we have any money left to give away then it should be used to encourage and help British Enterprise... not make it cheaper to watch TV!

David Lindsay

David Cameron’s proposed freeze is all very well. But if the BBC really wants to save the license fee, then that fee should be made optional, with as many adults as wished to pay it at any given address free to do so, including those who did not own a television set but who greatly valued, for example, Radio Four.

The Trustees would then be elected by and from among the license-payers. Candidates would have to be sufficiently independent to qualify in principle for the remuneration panels of their local authorities. Each license-payer would vote for one, with the top two elected.

The electoral areas would be Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland, and each of the nine English regions. The Chairman would be appointed by the relevant Secretary of State, with the approval of the relevant Select Committee. And the term of office would be four years.

At the same time, we need to ban any person or other interest from owning or controlling more than one national daily newspaper. To ban any person or other interest from owning or controlling more than one national weekly newspaper. To ban any person or other interest from owning or controlling more than one television station. To re-regionalise ITV under a combination of municipal and mutual ownership. And to apply that same model (but with central government replacing local government, subject to very strict parliamentary scrutiny) to Channel Four.

David Ossitt

David Lindsay.

I was warming to your argument until:-

the nine English regions.

This is a European Union mind set.

I do not live in or come from a region; I am first an English man, then a Northerner, a Yorkshire man born in the West Riding Man.

For pities sake; if we can have a Scots man, a Welsh, an Irish man, why should we the English settle for being a bloody region man?

In the name of

David Ossitt

David Lindsay.

Sorry I at first stopped reading at the word region.

I have since read on; so you want to ban this that or the other.

That has been my main problem (prior to the crunch)with this lot in power.

People who seek to ban others from following their own likes, pleasures, pastimes and all other legal pursuits are in my opinion beyond the pale.