Thursday, October 15, 2020

Penalty shoot-out

Oliver Dowden seems to have remembered some of his Trinity Hall brushes with Collins' Law In A Nutshell books. The Culture Secretary has effectively kicked decriminalisation of licence fee non-payment into the next round of licence fee negotiations, to be settled in 2022. 

“I do think there are major challenges around decriminalisation, which we can continue to consider. I am concerned that were we to choose to [decriminalise], we do not send a signal that it is acceptable not to pay your TV licence."

This comes as Silver Voices, lobbying for the maintenance of free licences for all over-75s, is holding a ballot on a boycott; the Darren Grimes' led campaign #defundthebbc has 98,000 followers; and four SNP MPs are threatening to call on licence-fee payers in Scotland to withhold their payments. In the current mood of 'cancel culture', de-criminalisation would lose the BBC much more than the predicted £250m a year... 

This is at least a partial success for new DG Tim Davie. 


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