Thursday, October 10, 2019

Persistent Philip

More than a handful of bright young things are currently writing manifestos.

The ever-helpful entirely-charitable secretly-funded free-market Institute of Economic Affairs today suggests turning the BBC into a subscription-based organisation like The National Trust, under a management elected by subscribers. The paper is written by Philip Booth.

In April 2016, the IEA published "The Case for Privatising the BBC". The booklet was edited by Philip Booth. It contained a long chapter on alleged BBC bias (particularly against the IEA) by Ryan Bourne, now Chair in Public Understanding of Economics at the Cato Institute, and a Telegraph columnist. The free-market Institute has published entertaining views on tobacco and climate change.  Ryan's twitter feed is followed by Carrie Symonds and Michael Gove.

In 2004, the IEA published "Public Service Broadcasting Without the BBC ?", with an introduction by Philip Booth. It proposed a BBC funded by voluntary subscription. There was a major contribution from Sir Alan Peacock.

In 1985, Margaret Thatcher commissioned Professor Alan Peacock to review the licence fee and see if the BBC could be funded by advertising. In 1986 Sir Alan proposed a reformed licence fee, but with some growing element of pay-per-view or direct subscription. Subsequent analysis demonstrated that the idea would cut BBC income by more than half, and it was dropped.

If any readers are actually writing manifestos, Philip Booth has a range of ideas. "Tax havens do serve a useful purpose"; "Taxation can exhaust our ability to make moral choices to help our families, our neighbours and society more widely"; "Privatisation of energy markets is a great success story"

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