The television license fee should be made optional, with as
many adults as wished to pay it at any given address free to do so, including
those who did not own a television set but who greatly valued, for example,
Radio Four.
The Trustees would then be elected by and from among the
license-payers. Candidates would have to be sufficiently independent to qualify
in principle for the remuneration panels of their local authorities. Each
license-payer would vote for one, with the top two elected.
The electoral areas would be Scotland, Wales, Northern
Ireland, and each of the nine English regions. The Chairman would be appointed
by the relevant Secretary of State, with the approval of the relevant Select
Committee. And the term of office would be four years.
One would not need to be a member of the Trust (i.e., a
license-payer) to listen to or watch the BBC, just as one does not need to be a
member of the National Trust to visit its properties, or a member of the Royal
National Lifeboat Institution to be rescued by its boats.
But what do we get instead as our policymakers? Boys who should be making your coffee.
ReplyDeleteI'm a tea drinker.
DeleteBut careful, now. Bill Clinton once told Ted Kennedy that, "That boy should be getting us coffee."
You can guess about whom they were speaking.