The BBC is finally being punished!

[longfingernails]

Apparently there is a great plan to shift the cost of free TV licenses from the taxpayer to the BBC - with no increase in the license fee to compensate!

That amounts to about a 20% cut in the BBC budget. I am over the moon at this news.

It's incredibly progressive too! It shifts the burden from poor taxpayers to overpaid BBC staff, who will probably have to take a 25% pay cut! I am sure the newsreader who revealed she was paid £92k will be distraught. I can't even begin to imagine how much luvvies like Robert Peston and Andrew Marr are paid.

Maybe the next time the BBC says that "public spending cuts take money out of the economy" on the news, it might like to reflect on why Tories are so cock-a-hoop tonight.

They are in the middle of a "Cuts watch" series of programmes, I understand. Funnily enough, they never seemed to get round to a "Deficit watch" or "Tax watch" series during the Labour years. Strange, really - I wonder why?

No Scaryteacher, you misunderstood me.

There are similarities to be drawn in careers which require dedication, passion and comittment. As opposed to doing a job which you can switch off from after 8 hours.

I'm leaving it there, because I don't think you are getting my point. I am not trying to compare the two scenarios because there is no comparison. Putting you life on the line for your country is a bigger deal than getting My Family out onto our screens IMO. You can't compare the two simply because they are paid for out of public money. That's where the similarity ends IMO.

ScaryMoaningArrrggghhhs There is no option to say "socialist" as far as I can tell - the options are dictated by the political terminology in the US. "Liberal" in the US sense is close to "Socialist" in the British sense.

I am quite "liberal" in my political views as far as the British sense goes, but certainly not in the American sense.

TheCoalitionNeedsYou That is true on an individual basis, but not an institutional one.

I fully accept that most BBC reporters, even pinko ones, try to be unbiased in their coverage - though many are actively malicious.

However, their north London chattering class dinner-circuit world probably doesn't talk about things like Euroscepticism, immigration, breakdown of discipline in schools, etc. That makes them far less likely to report on such stories in the first place.

OK back to work - will catch up on all the abuse later :o.

I love the BBC, sure there is some shit around and perhaps some over indulgence BUT they still do some fantastic reporting over many unsettling/ serious/ important / unglamorous/ unfashionable subjects in a non sensationalist way

leave it alone

they should not be doing awful lowest common denominator programming it is beneath them

and as for being left biased I have noticed that Nick 'the glasses' Robinson is very pro Tory and Evan is forever in awe of 'business' folk often neglecting to ask proper questions in favour of licking them up

so much for lefties but it is ok balance and all that

smallwhitecat - A citation showing that the BBC uses positive as opposed to negative language when talking about tax rises.

longfingernails - The BBC has covered all those things.

Incidentally cuts WILL take money out of the economy. So will tax rises.

If we had a balanced budget then arguments about who spends money more efficiently, the state or individuals might be relevant.

As increased tax and cuts both go to reducing the amount we are borrowing, both involve taking money out of the economy.

Pinko How funny. :)

Oh my goodness. The OP sounds like a (bad)vparody of a tory. Has got to be a wind-up!

"cuts leave money in your pocket because you don't have to pay tax"

So cuts don't "leave" money in your pocket unless taxes are lowered?

"You can usually choose what to do with that money better than the government."

That is a belief, an ideological belief. It is not a fact. But let's go along with it for a moment...

"A pound of money you spend will usually go further than a pound of money spent by the government. For example, instead of paying for a quango, you could buy a sofa. "

PMSL :o

So sofas are better use of money than quangos? Don't you think that is just a little simplistic?

"If enough people did that, then the sofa company could hire more employees."

Where is the sofa company located? In the UK? Or might it be located in say, Sweden? Or what if they buy electronic goods manufactured by virtual slaves in China?

George Osborne's cuts would need to be offset by the creation of 2.5 million jobs within 5 years. That is far more jobs than were created during the boom years.

If the cuts damage growth like those mad Commies in the IMF, FT, OECD are suggesting then the deficit gets bigger. So no sofa money for you!

Longfingernails, I appreciate you have now left the room, as it were, but in my view the Government's just getting the coverage it's lined up for itself.

So, the BBC website is doing silly articles based on someone trying to cut their budget by 40%. Er, that will be because the Government spin at the start of this process was that departments were being told to find 40% worth of cuts.

Also not scrutinised by the BBC, George Osbourne's assertion that our national debt was enabling foreign governments to build their own schools: "We are already paying £120m of interest every single day thanks to the last Labour government. Millions of pounds every day that goes to the foreign governments we owe so they can build the schools and hospitals for their own citizens that we aren?t able to afford for ours...? Actually only a third of UK gilts are held abroad, and there's no information on how much of that third is held privately, and how much by governments. The rest is held by UK investors.

MAtsikula,

Yeah, UK pension funds are FORCED to buy ridiculously expensive gilts to match their long term liabilities. Another of the Brown cons. And the bailed out banks love them too. No need to lend to consumers or small businesses when you can buy gilts and roll down the yield curve. And when we have the second round of QE, the banks can sell them to the BOE at a nice profit. What a Ponzi scheme.

I've name changed...

I work for the BBC and I can say for certain that I am not paid a great wage despite having been here 10 years and having a degree in my field.

I work in the archive doing research and providing archive material for programmes and managing a department. I wonder what people would think I am worth compared to what I am really earning?

"No need to lend to consumers or small businesses when you can buy gilts and roll down the yield curve. And when we have the second round of QE, the banks can sell them to the BOE at a nice profit. What a Ponzi scheme."

amen, brother

really

'For example, instead of paying for a quango, you could buy a sofa. If enough people did that, then the sofa company could hire more employees. Maybe an entrepreneur carpenter would decide to set up a new sofa making business. All much better for the economy.'

LOL.

So Scaryteacher and her DH, even if he doesn't if he end up as the 1 in 5 in the RN whose job is axed this time round are going to buy a sofa from the entrepreneur carpenter? Maybe the sofa maker would hire Scary's DH when his turn comes, with all that extra sofa money and all the money the banks are going to throw at him to hire people. Hiring is the last thing employers are doing in the US right now -- why do you think Britain will be different?

The result of dumbed down commercial channel domination of broadcasting and especially of news broadcasting in a multicultural, multi ethnic society (the US for instance) is fragmentation of the body politic and of culture, with echo chamber politics, and a complete lack of shared values, the sort of climate that produced and continues to support groups like the Tea Party, the climate that sparked the unprecedented outburst in the House of Congress from Joe Wilson (R. South Carolina) during the State of the Union Address by President Obama -- in short, a debased public arena with money speaking loudest.

As for the BBC's reputation in the world -- there is such a thing as soft power, and the BBC is it. Britain's face in the world is a much respected one, held up as an example of what broadcast news and current affairs and entertainment programming should be. Many thoughtful people the world over who are not penny wise and pound foolish like LFN here, will be wondering exactly what strangling the BBC is supposed to achieve.

very well said mathanx (as usual)

Getting rid of it would be an act of cultural vandalism and ideological hooliganism.

The Con-Dems don't value culture just 'loads of money'.

Mathanx,

Beautifully written as ever, but economically illiterate. And, if I am not mistaken, you are in the States and, therefore, not personally paying to watch the BBC.

Firstly, "crowding out" is a well known economic principle, whereby when the state sponsors an area of the economy, they crowd out the private sector. So, the BBC is putting huge pressure on companies like ITV, who are forced to dumb down to compete. Governments cannot ultimately derive tax from the public sector unless it is run for profit, in which case why is the government there in the first place? Therefore, public sector stimulus can at best be a short term measure.

I personally prefer the U.S "echo chamber" politics you describe, which seems to me like robust debate, than the quasi-consensus politics we have at the moment in the U.K. The reality is that all political parties are perilously close together in believing in a high tax centralist regime. The only difference is that the tories are marginally less that way inclined than the labour party.

Mathanx, your friends may find the UK projects "soft power". Personally, my european ex-pat friends are considering leaving the UK for lower tax economically freer regimes such as Singapore (economically, not politically free) or Switzerland. They see the UK as the sick man of Europe who will never be able to reduce taxes due to the bloated public sector and see the BBC as merely pandering to that way of thinking.

SupportSmallBusiness,

I think it was the Labour party who really valued "loads of money". They loved their non-doms, management consultants and bankers and nursed them to support their socialist policies for the bottom end (and their mates). It was the middle that got really squeezed under Labour.

Larrygrylls, do your friends really see the UK as the sick man of Europe when we have Ireland, Greece and Spain to compare with? Not to mention France and Germany's terrible youth unemployment rates? Come off it.

You say that the BBC 'crowds out' commercial TV. But actually, when we had only 3 or 4 TV channels, the commercial stations had a far higher quality output than they do now. Would it be 'economically illiterate' to suggest that it could have been the proliferation of commercial channels that drove output downmarket? We've also seen a drive downmarket in the newspaper market, where the BBC has no role. Perhaps using 'the market' as your only analysis tool is a bit limiting.

As for your US comparisons, Britain's consensual politics has emerged because that is what suits a densely populated, largely urban country. One of the joys of democracy is that it means you end up with a system and a political discourse that suits the electorate. The US has the space (literally) for a Tea Party movement. Perhaps we don't.

Matiskula,

Most of the people I know are not considering living in the 3 peripheral nations that you cite. France and Germany have far lower deficits, far higher expected growth rates and a far better educational system than the UK.

How can the BBC not "crowd out" commercial TV? I know a few people at ITV and they have suffered terribly because they say they cannot compete with the steady revenue of the license fee.

Where does your last paragraph come from? Why was it not equally true in the 70s and 80s? We have been a densely populated (less so but still densely) urban country pretty much since the Second World War. I think you end up with a politics that suits the political class, not necessarily the electorate. Unless, of course, you believe that the expenses scandal also suited us, and the Iraq war? Maybe you do.

Crowded out?

Those peripheral members who have been members since 73,81 and 86?