Licence to kill off a sense of social responsibilities
TAKING away old folks’ free TV licences was an act of social vandalism.
And they now admit they can’t even get that right.
Pensioners who refused to pay up to watch the telly won’t be prosecuted this year, signals the BBC.
During the Covid crisis, Beeb bosses suspended home visits chasing the over-75s, giving them extra time to apply for a licence and reassuring them they are “still legally covered”.
And in a letter to cricketing peer Lord Botham, BBC director-general Tim Davie discloses that no one over the qualifying age was prosecuted for not having a licence in the eight years before 2000, when Labour introduced the benefit.
If Gordon Brown didn’t do it then, why should Boris Johnson do it now?
Since the Tories scrapped this treasured concession, 2.8 million of us have bought licences, netting the corporation around £450million.
Only 770,000 on pension credits eligible for free viewing have applied. And almost as many are thought to be “refusniks”. Beeb bosses insist there is no change in enforcement policy, which means the TV police will come knocking on the door from April, after an unofficial, one-off amnesty.
Yet they claim – off the record – that they don’t wish to drag very old people through the courts.
Sphericals. That is precisely what will happen unless the policy is changed.
The pandemic has shown just how vital the telly is for a housebound generation most at risk from coronavirus.
Ministers who forced the BBC to make oldies foot the bill should admit they were wrong and give us back our licences. While they’re at it, can I have my £157.50 back? I paid up on time last August, but if I’d defied the law, they wouldn’t have come after me.
“Older people are very law-abiding,” says the smug Beeb. Yes we are, and the bloody Tories know it. So they exploit our social responsibility.
Charming.
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TV police will come knocking on the door from April after amnesty