BBC License in the balance?

[Albert H]

Dream On!

The BBC was unbiased up until they stopped being run by the MOD and FO. That was around 1988. After that, they had a succession of ever more ineffective Directors General until they ended up with Greg Dyke.... They were completely screwed from that desperate point onward. Anyone with any integrity and ability left the BBC at that time, and subsequently it has sunk ever further into the mire of Political Correctness and lefty idealism.

The Foreign Office (their former paymasters) have virtually shut down World Service. BBC WS was (once) the proud, unbiased voice of the UK and had real influence in the world. It's really sad that it has almost entirely gone.

[wazza]

it has sunk ever further into the mire of Political Correctness and lefty idealism.

You were saying that you don't have a political bias?

[Albert H]

Practically speaking, I don't have a political bias. Over here, we've had mild, centrist coalitions for as long as I can remember, and we have one of the highest standards of living in the world.

Our basic taxation is bearable - we don't suffer from the "politics of envy" that afflicts the UK - if a UK citizen does well in life, (s)he's really penalised by taxation for being successful. This results in one of two things: either (s)he avoids / evades tax, or (s)he takes the lucrative skills and abilities abroad (like I did). The UK suffers in either case.

I ran a fairly successful electronics company, employing about 120 people. When Bliar came to power in 1997, taxation went through the roof, rents for premises became unaffordable, and after almost 2 years of mostly working for the "government", I sold off the company and moved abroad to a country with much lower tax, better education, and affordable rents.

Hiring the staff I needed for my new enterprise was easier than it had been in the UK. My company is now on three continents. We're bigger and more successful than we ever were before, and I pay reasonable taxes. We bought two small manufacturing companies and got their expertise and designs as part of the deal, and I now have a small group of well-paid, highly qualified design engineers, and workshops that assemble the equipment we sell. We get PCBs etched and loaded in a couple of Asian countries - giving work there - and our metalwork is mostly done in Eastern Europe.

British friends of mine are leaving the UK in droves - not because of Brexit, but because they're fed up with worsening social conditions, bad weather, abysmal education, and tax that's an aggregate of around 70% for most "higher rate" taxpayers. The basic rate of UK Income Tax is 25%, rising to 40% if you earn a reasonable amount. There's a further 10 - 15% "National Insurance", then there's 20% VAT, 90% fuel tax, the insane "green levy" for businesses that use energy (that's all of them), corporation tax, and they even charge you Death Duty if you die!!!

Over here, my aggregate taxation is around 38% plus 4% for Health Insurance. We don't have kids stabbing each other all the time, and the government laugh at the silly notion of "Climate Change" - it has always changed and will continue to do so! The food over here is higher quality, and I can buy a good detached house in a pleasant suburb for about one quarter of what it would cost me in the UK. The perpetual centrist coalitions never make any radical decisions, so we muddle along enjoying life, and just point and laugh at the silly Marxist nutters running the UK Labour Party (as if any of them had actually ever done any labour) and the dopey Etonian toffs (the cream of the country - rich and thick, and rise to the top) who believe that they have power (they don't - the UK has always been run by the Civil Service!).

[sinus trouble]

I have to agree with Albert!

The Government have done nothing for me or my family but make things worse! Labour and Conservatives!
The only way we have survived is by fighting for a decent living!!

Its not just the rich that get stung!

If we are talking about 'Bias' the BBC are the very ones who advertised job vacancies for 'Non Male' 'Non White' Applicants?? Any other employer would be persecuted for suggesting such a thing!!!

[Persona Non Grata]

There are plans afoot to decriminalise the non-payment of the Telly Tax

People need to be very careful what they wish for on this score. Decriminalisation just means Capita would simply pursue the fee (probably using baliffs) as a contract debt from those not paying it. The standard of proof/evidence for civil cases is a lot lower than for criminal ones.

At the moment it's pretty easy to get out of paying the licence if one is genuinely not legally required to do so. One just ignores the letters and refuses to engage with Capita. If/when they start pursuing cases through civil courts it may become necessary to actively prove one doesn't watch TV and proving a negative can be difficult.

[yellowbeard]

You all may be paying for it for domestic consumption, but the BBC is a face that the UK turns to the world on radio, TV and online. It may be accused of biases in domestic politics and "wokeness" (whatever the fuck that means) - but it is the gold standard for news reporting internationally. If I could I would gladly pay a licence fee to them instead of the shitebags that run RTÉ. The politicians running the shop in the UK are too small to be making a big decision like that and will sell it off to Murdoch or Goebbels if they are allowed. You don't realise how good what you got is - I pay roughly the same licence fee for radio and TV stations that I may not use for weeks on end THAT PLAY ADVERTS - and 8 times as much for sky. Now back to the studio - Yellowbeard, BBC rants, Dublin...

[Albert H]

Yellowbeard - you're right about RTE - they're the worst of government-run but still commercial broadcasting. However, the BBC is now far worse - wildly biased and partisan reporting, omission of items that don't fit their lefty agenda, and outright lies about any political issue that doesn't fit with their weird worldview.

Back in the 1970s, the BBC was the gold standard for both radio and TV broadcasting, and provided the facilities for the Foreign Office-run World Service. I was proud to work for them back then, and they provided superb engineering training to us raw graduates at their purpose-built engineering training centre at Wood Norton (near Evesham in Worcestershire). I spent a total of 2½ years there on various courses. They also provided engineering training to broadcasters from other countries, and some of the contacts I made then proved to be very useful over the years.

I remember having to ask for permission to "click" on a live programme circuit! I was told that I could "click" at exactly 10:44 and 45 seconds! This allowed the connection of an additional piece of audio processing gear.

The BBC Radio flagship news programme was "Today" on Radio 4. These days it's so bad it's even called the "Toady" programme in-house at the BBC! They lost the last of their credibility about 30 years ago.

The UK is fortunate to have alternative news services provided by Times Radio, Talk Radio and even LBC (if you want a leftist viewpoint). These services are significantly better than the BBC output, and certainly more up-to-the-minute. Times Radio has a largely unbiased stance, and seems to report fairly, though the lefties howl that it's "Right Wing". It isn't!

I'm really glad to be away from all that political in-fighting.

[EFR]

Heh, I think they removed telly-tax in Sweden and Finland and compined it to the normal yearly tax, making it about 200€/year.