The Spectator's Notes

29 November 2008

In his speech announcing his Pre-Budget Report, Alistair Darling said that he was going to put up the top rate of income tax to 45 per cent from 2011, because he wanted the burden to be borne by ‘those who have done best out of the growth of the past decade’.

South Pavilion in Wotton Underwood, the house which Tony Blair bought for £4 million after leaving office, is close to Chequers. It has been suggested that the rivalry between Mr Blair and Gordon Brown continues through this means, with the former prime minister creating a more glittering country salon than his successor. This would seem to be confirmed by a rumour which has reached me that two members of the Chequers domestic staff have been lured away by the Blairs.

It is now exactly two years since this column first began to draw attention to the strange behaviour of TV Licensing, the body which collects television licence fees for the BBC. Readers will remember that my original point was that if — like me in my London flat — you do not have a television, you get a stream of threatening letters from TV Licensing, accusing you of cheating, and threatening you with prosecution unless you buy a television licence. Since then, I have received countless examples of this abuse from helpful readers. It is now the subject of red-hot items on the letters page of the Daily Telegraph. A Mr Geoffrey Pope even wrote to say that his 97-year-old mother was accused of cheating by the authority (even though no one over the age of 75 has to pay for a television licence), and its last nasty letter was found open on the floor beside the chair in which she died.

The knowledge I have picked up over these past two years emboldens me in my new scheme. In Sussex, where we have a television and a television licence, I have (see Notes, 8 November) decided to keep the former, dispense with the latter, and pay the £139.50 to Help the Aged instead, unless the BBC sacks the foul-mouthed Jonathan Ross. On the Today programme last week, a BBC spokesman admonished me to obey the law. I suspect a case of motes and beams. The TV Licensing information I have accumulated strongly suggests that the BBC breaks the law systematically in the methods of collection it uses. For example, it libels people by suggesting dishonesty with no evidence. It also harasses people, which is a crime. And, according to another correspondent in the Telegraph, it breaks section 40 of the 1970 Administration of Justice Act which makes it a criminal offence to pursue people for debts for which they are not liable. TV Licensing probably also infringes the right to privacy enshrined in the Human Rights Act. I wonder if there is a clever lawyer who would be willing to take up some of these cases on a pro bono basis.

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mondayclubber

November 28th, 2008 12:01am Report this comment

Careful Charles ,letter in todays Guardian

I would like to reassure your readers that absolutely everybody risks prosecution if they are watching television without a licence. Last year, we prosecuted 151,000 people. We do not take personal opinion into consideration and we do not shy from prosecuting. If and when their addresses become unlicensed, this will apply to Noel Edmonds and Charles Moore as much as it applies to anyone else (Letters, November 25).
Ian Fannon
TV Licensing

"We do not take personal opinion into consideration" So are we not allowed in Labour Stasi Britain to have one

Peter

November 29th, 2008 6:49am Report this comment

Have any aspects you outline been tested for legal validity? I know that much in our glorious legal system is open to (a word the BBC will love) 'interpretation'. Also can't help that so much is also 'unique' and beyond any other financial relationship I have experienced.

Beyond what has troubled you, certainly I have to believe any contractual arrangement between me and many aspects of my public broadcaster's service for a fee have been breached, from highly questionable information being selected and supplied, actions unrepresentative of my views being carried out, commitments against my wishes as a stakeholder (I see this word is now lampooned, but know of no other way to describe the relationship) being made, and a template-based faux 'complaints' system that is a joke.

David Short

December 3rd, 2008 3:14pm Report this comment

It would not be the BBC that breaks the law, but the odious 'TV Licensing' which holds the contract for recklessly pursuing and harassing honest people.

And when did any institution have an activity as its name without a noun; 'TV Licensing' is illiterate as well as charmless and criminal. No BBC spokesperson should be speaking on behalf of this independent 'body'.

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