The Spectator’s Notes

1 March 2008

Charles Moore's reflections on the week

Another reader, Mr L, tells me that he recently bought a television from Peter Jones and three days later received a letter from TV Licensing telling him to go out and get a licence for it. It turns out that retailers of televisions have a legal obligation to inform TV Licensing of the address of each purchaser, though only, so far, of televisions, not of computers. Mr L thinks that this breaches article 8 (concerning privacy) of the European Convention on Human Rights. It would be good to test this.

One of the running jokes in Private Eye used to be a list of benefits from some public service or other which included, inexplicably, ‘grapefruit segments’. Last week, the Labour party emailed me ‘Our 50 top achievements since being elected in 1997’. Achievement no. 50 is ‘Free fruit for most four- to six-year-olds at school’.

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AppalledofLondon

February 28th, 2008 10:38am Report this comment

The way to get round the obligation which firms selling you tv equipment have is to give a completely phony address. My favourite is SW1A 2AA. I hope G Brown enjoys reading the letters from the TV licensing authorities.

Jim Hardman

February 29th, 2008 8:22pm Report this comment

Regulation of Parliament? Yesterday evening, I went to hear the Chief Executive of the Solicitors Regulation Authority explain the role of the SRA. His background, he said, was in.......'regulation'......... of doctors, dentists etc. He was an apparently civilised, intelligent man, whose background is......... regulation. At some point the SRA will be regulated by some statutory body. Who will regulate the super regulator?

Jack Monteltici

March 6th, 2008 10:58pm Report this comment

In Italy tv shops have been handing over details of buyers of new sets to the state tv (RAI) for decades, and licence evasion is rife. The phoney address ploy mentioned by AppalledOfLondon is excellent and one that is used extensively in Italy. Actually, only part of the licence money will actually end up in the BBC coffers (RAI only cash about 30%), so it's just another stealth tax! Seems to me that the greatest benefit of Britain's EU membership is that continental politicians have been teaching their British counterparts a trick or two: how to fleece us and how never to be honest!

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