In various newspapers, Esther Rantzen is quoted as saying: “The BBC probably feel that their reputation is very high at the moment. They’ve been a fantastic source of news, they’re offering educational programmes for children who can’t go to school. So they’re taking advantage of this moment but I think that they should have left it until September, when life would have eased up a bit for all of us, particularly for older people.”
But she added: “But my main criticism at the moment is for the politicians. I do think that (Culture Secretary) Oliver Dowden, who said he felt let down by the BBC, was shifting blame…
“It was Gordon Brown who decided to make this gift of free television licences, and it was George Osborne (then chancellor)* who took it away and said the Government would no longer fund it.”
One can have mixed feelings about the BBC's reputation, but surely Rantzen is right about the responsibility for the licence concession. It is a social measure, and not something the BBC should have been dragged into, linking the corporation to government. It was announced in the first place by Chris Smith, the then Culture Secretary, and perhaps this was a mistake of presentation. It could not have gone ahead without the approval of chancellor Gordon Brown, who was clearly stung by the criticism of his recent niggardly 75p/week pensions increase and needed some gesture of compensation.
The coalition made a major step towards bringing the level of state pensions up to the continental norm by introducing the triple lock. We are not there yet, and until we are, it is surely right for the government to reinstate the TV licence concession, paid for out of taxation, not the licence fee.
* The concession was shifted on to the BBC after Tories gained a majority in the 2015 general election and ended the coalition.
No comments:
Post a Comment