Westministenders: No Australia Don't Have A Deal

[RedToothBrush]

Since Friday, far from letting things calm down, Johnson has doubled down stating that if we can't have a Canada Deal (which the EU says wouldn't be equal because we are much closer than Canada geographically) we will go for an Australia Deal.

This is the latest rehash of a managed no deal package up as something else which the EU have already repeatedly said no to.

So we are on track for no deal.

At the same time Johnson has got very excited about American food and how its great. Almost as if he wants no deal wit the EU to force a shitty bad deal with the us through.

Johnson and his chronies have also been trying to undermine journalistic transparency by blocking access to the lobby to some media outlets in a move that makes us look like a tinpot dictatorship. Fortunately there was a mass walk out of journalists but it remains to be seen how long that can be maintained.

Far from being a clean slate to move forward from its already proving that nothing has changed and old divisions are as deep as ever, if not worse...

Appeal to emotion again.

People decide what the poor should spend their money on all the time through indirect taxes, which are far more damaging than the TV licence yet you use this emotional argument against the BBC fee ?

Weekly its a fractional amount. A household struggling to afford this most certainly won't be affording broadband and a netflix subscription, nor any other. In fact in comparison the BBC output is good value for money for entertainment, representing far better value than netflix/amazon/sky.

"The patronising MC forcing things on the population" what is patronising is your point about certain demographics only tuning in to watch game shows.

Math Sky and C4 are better for news & current affairs than the Beeb
They and online sources replaced the BBC for me a long time ago
I just haven't watched it for years

And I don't want to abolish it - merely stop the compulsory flat tax to pay for it

If everyone is so convinced the BBC would die out if paid by subscription,
then that does raise the question of how many people actually value it

If there aren't enough liberals, centrists & everyone else outside the rightwing who can afford to subscribe, then there are more serious problems to discuss.

It is emotional when you're poor and some stuck-up git makes you pay for something you don't want
or won't understand that 150 quid per year makes a big difference

If there wasn't a BBC licence fee, then families could enjoy all the FREE TV channels

You remind me of the bloody form monitors at grammar school who would come round every week demanding I pay something to the current charity
(that was in the days before schools needed charity themselves)

They kept saying that I could afford a couple of shillings per week and I just wasn't public spirited enough
I had no fucking money at all. Zero
When I finally told them that I didn't get pocket money, they said I should tell my mother to give me some
I was far too proud to say she had to count every penny and couldn't afford to give me even a shilling
which was why I was always in the same outgrown tatty uniform
and could never go on school trips

That bullying for money went on for years
I hated those fucking mc bitches and their total lack of understanding of how some other people lived

Not everyone is convinced the BBC would die out if it was to become a subscription but commercial pressures mean that output that is of high value, or risky to commission/expensive to commission.

Tell me of a commercial broadcaster that makes documentaries on the scale of Attenborough's? Half of the output of the commercial stations who show documentaries is from the BBC. Other things may not get made either.

I quoted the game show because someone on another thread was posting how they didn't believe that anyone could watch absoultely no BBC programs
and some people were saying they didn't
but one watched a BBC game show

The documentaries are the kind of thing that people would subscribe for, if they wanted the BBC

Are they really so much more expensive than all the light entertainment shows that have hosts with enormous salaries, sometimes big prizes too ?

The point is not whether the BBC is worth our subscription fee, the point is that revoking the licence fee is another step towards complete control over the media by private vested interests.

It's payback to Murdoch who's had it in for the BBC for many years. Regardless of complaints of bias, the BBC is more impartial than Sky for god's sake, or the LBC stoking high emotions or RT! Let alone a station like Fox that Cummings so desperately wants. Media don't report news, it shapes opinion and we've seen what the likes of how privately owned media want to shape the views and it's not a pretty sight. Think of Italy, of Russia, of the US and how vested interests control media in those countries to what effect. The loss of Britain's 'gift to the world' will be a huge loss to this country.

But an appeal to emotion is a fundamentally flawed argument, and again you've used the annual figure not the weekly, which is disingenuous.

Your argument is much like that of the US Republicans regarding healthcare or education that people should be able to choose what they want, and that poor people are forced to pay. it has merit until you realise that without the way things are currently structured much of the output would be either unavailable to the vast majority of families on lower incomes as it would become the preserve of theatres and paid for material or that it would be prohibitively expensive. Thus making access to the kind of programming the preserve of the well off.

Spare me the sob story.

Re paying by taxation for other services:

the NHS, police, fire, education etc are all essential services that people can see benefit them
and there is no alternative service for over 90% of the population

That's why there is no significant public objection to paying for them

TV and radio are not, especially with hundreds of other channels available, many of them free
You may consider them inferior because they are commercial, but judging by viiewing figures, much of the public do not

The BBC licence fee is about forcing everyone to pay for a luxury that a more privileged minority want - and could pay for themselves if they really wanted to

I have enjoyed the other thread where people say they watch Peaky Blinders etc on Netflix.

Not realising that without BBC funding things like Peaky Blinders wouldn't get made as they would be too expensive for something that wouldn't be a guaranteed hit.

If commercial TV output is so high why has ITV made maybe one/two programs that have been hits outside the UK in the last 10 years when the BBC can list way more?

The annual figure is not disingenuous; the weekly one is
You could make it even smaller by quoting the daily or hourly figure
It is still 150 quid per year going out.

When you're poor, you can go weeks in dire straits, before it gets better
So sometimes you don't have 3 quid spare
Back in my years at school, we didn't have 2 bob to spare most weeks

"If commercial TV output is so high why has ITV made maybe one/two programs that have been hits outside the UK in the last 10 years when the BBC can list way more?"

I've seen a lot more ITV exports in Germany, back in the day when I bothered with the telly

No, the world doesn't envy us the BBC
A few privileged liberals in other countries praise it, but others just enjoy the occasional import, just as they do for the commercial channels or the far far greater number of imports from the USA

If exports are a sign of quality, then the USA is beating the BBC by about 100 to 1 in Germany at least

People don't budget on an annual basis, on low incomes it's done weekly.

The weekly/monthly figure is far more accurate to use because this is how people manage their money. Using the annual figure is only done to make it appear to be large (even then it isn't)).

Lets compare it to the annual cost of a sky package? Remember that without the BBC paying for infrastructure freeview would go too.

Basic sky package is 33 quid a month so 366 a year.

BCF you're analysis on so many matters is spot on, but it seems you're doing the equivalent of people who debated Brexit on the basis of 'what's in it for me'. Universalising the personal. I accept that the licence fee felt massively unfair to you growing up, but this country needs a free and independent press and it is not going to get it by subscription tv. The UK needs a public broadcaster.

BJ and Cummings are not doing this to save people money...

Really Bigchoc you have a political issue with the BBC and are trying to dress it up as something else.

Poor.

Why do you think Cummings wants the UK to have a Fox News?

The way you keep comparing your wishlists like the BBC to essential services like health & education makes it so much easier for the right to demonise spending and cut the essentials too

The greatest weapon that the right have is the sneering of the liberal left at the poor and those of us who grew up poor

Claiming the poor can afford to spend their money on your wishlist, that you deem important
When I was poor I hated, hated the privileged mc who did this
The resentment still burns 50 years later
*
Red* has a thread title about the culture war
You're losing

You never fucking listen to those who aren't like you
which is why you keep losing

The thread is not about Brexit anymore now.

Is it?

"Really Bigchoc you have a political issue with the BBC and are trying to dress it up as something else. "

BOLLOCKS

I had this same debate on MN years before the referendum

When I was a student for 6 years, then when I was on my first job, I bitterly resented the licence fee, because I could get a TV, but I couldn't afford the licence too.
So I had no TV until I was about 28

I've said before I would defend the BBC from being abolished, but never that I would defend the licence fee

"People don't budget on an annual basis, on low incomes it's done weekly."

Yes and as I've posted, some weeks when you're poor you don't have 3 quid spare

Not bollocks, when you posted earlier about liberals and centerist and dressing up as this idea of a culture war.

If there is a war on culture its being done by an elitist cabal which regards the working class with utter disdain, and laughs all the way to the bank when they vote for them. Yeah they do tell you what to spend your money on if you are poor, they demonize you too, all the while creating policies which lead to the poor getting poorer. They just get to whip you into a froth about what them liberals want or immigration or some other bollocks.

I" hated the privileged MC who did this? "

Again painting this as a class thing is ridiculous.

DrBlackbird The BBC licence fee is something I bitterly resented for years when poor
It would be disgracefully hypocritical of me to support it now I'm all right, Jack.

I've always opposed any suggestion of a flat tax, which is what the licence fee is,
because of the unfair burden on the poor

I don't see the justification of using income tax for it instead, when essential public services like health & education are on their knees

Realistically, the days of an independent BBC are long gone anyway, as it will now always be a govt mouthpiece
So it's not even as if we're talking of saving the BBC of Reith

Well, I can only say I hope BJ abolishes the licence fee - that 150 quid may be the only thing he ever gives to the poor

If I can find the thread on the BBC from about 2013, I'll post the link,
so you can see I made the same arguments then against the licence fee