BBC LEGENDS: END THIS BETRAYAL
Stars demand Beeb chiefs and Tories lift axe on free television for the over-75s
A STRING of BBC stars are demanding that plans to scrap free TV licences for over-75s are ditched.
Strictly Come Dancing legend Len Goodman, 75, slammed the proposal as “rotten”.
Dame Esther Rantzen, 78, called the plan “cruel” as she backed the Mirror’s fight to save the free licences.
And actor Ricky Tomlinson, 79, joined protesters who marched to the BBC’s Media-City headquarters in Salford yesterday to call for the move to be scrapped.
DAME Esther Rantzen says axing the free TV licence fee for over 75s would be appalling treachery.
She called it an “act of cruelty” that sends a message to the millions affected that “you are a nuisance, a burden, we don’t want you”.
Dame Esther, 78, who presented BBC show That’s Life! from 1973 to 1994, added: “It’s no good saying how much we owe older people on D-Day and then dropping them in it. It’s not respectful and it’s not right.”
As founder of The Silver Line, a support service for isolated older people, she said taking away the free licence from those who depend on TV for companionship and who will struggle to pay the £154.50 annual fee, would be “seriously damaging to their whole life”. She said the BBC made a big mistake agreeing to take over the licence benefit from the Government.
Len Goodman, a judge on BBC show Strictly Come Dancing for 13 years, said axing the free licences is a “rotten” thing to do. He added: “It will impact the most vulnerable, the most lonely and the poorest.”
He has joined the celebs supporting the Mirror and Age UK’s battle to stop the free licences being taken away.
The Labour government brought in the scheme in 1999.
But in a deal made in 2015, the Tories passed the burden to the BBC. It lumbers the broadcaster with a potential bill of £745million in 2021, rising to more than £1billion by 2029.
The Beeb plans to means-test the licences from next June.
The roughly 1.5 million who claim pensions credit will be exempt – but 3.7 million people will not. The Tories are breaking their 2017 election pledge not to make the elderly pay.
Len, 75, said: “In the scheme of things, with the billions that the Government spend on this, that and the other, it’s a pee in the ocean.”
On Monday, the BBC said that continuing the Government’s scheme would have a “severe impact” on services and the new model “represents the fairest possible outcome”.
In just a few days the petition to save free TV licences has reached almost half a million signatures.
You are a nuisance, a burden, we don’t want you – that’s the message DAME ESTHER ON PLAN TO DITCH FREE LICENCES
With the billions the government spends, this is a pee in the ocean LEN GOODMAN SLAMS THE UNFAIR CHANGES