BBC’s TV poll tax should be consigned to the history books

By Douglas Carswell

Douglas Carswell was first elected to Parliament in 2005 by a slender 920 votes. He was returned as MP for Clacton in 2010 with a 12,000 majority. He is the author of The End of Politics and the Birth of democracy and believes that the internet is making the world a vastly better place.

The Director General of the BBC, (Lord) Tony Hall, earns a reported £450,000 a year; or the equivalent of 3,103 license fees.

National Audit Office figures show that £25 million (172,413 license fees) has been used to pay off senior managers leaving the Beeb over the past three years.

Meanwhile, we now discover that more than one in ten court cases in the country are the result of people being prosecuted for not paying the license fee. Our courts, it seems, have become a tool used by the state-broadcaster to collect revenue. Public broadcasting that prosecutes the public.

“But the BBC fulfils a social role!” a Leftie told me on Twitter. Since when was prosecuting low-income households a useful social role? It is a disgrace.

Imagine, for a moment, the uproar there would be if Sky were to prosecute that many people for non-payment of Sky subscriptions? But then, of course, if folk cannot afford to pay Sky subs, they just don’t pay. No one comes after them in a court.

So why not extend the same principle to the BBC? Make it a subscription service.

Lefties keep on telling us how popular the BBC is. The Corporation's output is, they say, second to none. In which case, the BBC would have no difficulty in persuading us to pay for its services. The BBC should generate revenue by persuading willing customers to pay for its output, just like any other media outlet.

Digital technology gives us almost unlimited choice over what we can watch and listen too. So why do we still fund the BBC using a mid-twentieth century TV poll tax?