Article: The attack on the BBC

Thank you to the Independent for encouraging me to write this article.

In case it goes offline, the original text is below.

My Dad, Edward, is 100 years old. He started paying the BBC licence fee in circa 1945, when he was demobbed from the Royal Army Medical Corps. Now, after this government stopped funding the exemption for over-75s, he is paying it once again. And what he probably doesn’t realise, is that he’s in a war again, too.

The war this time is a culture war. We know, of course, that it has been reignited this weekend as part of “Operation Save Big Dog” to try to distract critics of Boris Johnson’s shameful Downing Street tenure on the one hand, and to throw juicy bones to the Tory right on the other.

This culture war strategy is nothing new. While we react to its agenda-setting horrific pronouncements, this government has been quietly pushing through legislation of which the public is substantially unaware – the Policing Bill, the NHS & Care Bill, the Elections Bill, to name just a few. Our democracy and rights are under coordinated – and largely unnoticed – attack. Such are the benefits to dishonest autocrats of stoking culture wars.

So let’s be clear. We are only talking about BBC funding today because the liar in Downing Street is on the ropes. I am only writing this article, and you are only reading it, because this is what he wants us to do. If that is a sobering thought, we can at least console ourselves with the thought that we are sober, which, evidently, is more than can reliably be said for our boozed-up overlords in No 10.

But make no mistake. The attack on the BBC may be part of a culture war, and it may be part of Operation Save Big Dog (or is that Big Dong? No-one is sure), but it is still an all-out attack.

And, as attacks go, it is cunning and low. The Culture Secretary, Nadine Dorries, tweeted, “This licence fee announcement will be the last. The days of the elderly being threatened with prison sentences and bailiffs knocking on doors, are over.”

Since people like my Dad are only having to resume paying the licence fee because this government refused to pay for their exemption, it is breathtakingly rich of Dorries to present herself as their champion. If any elderly folk are threatened with prison, that will be a direct result of her government’s mean-spirited choice.

This government has no regard for the elderly. We saw how they treated them in the pandemic, with their so-called “protective ring” and their encouragement of Do Not Resuscitate arrangements. We see how they treat them now, leaving them at the mercy of the energy market, equipped only with the lowest state pension of any wealthy economy. For many elderly folk, the box in the corner – and that mostly means the BBC – is a very significant comfort. Now the government wants, effectively, to switch it off.

If the professed care for the elderly is patently disingenuous, what of the criticism that the licence fee is “regressive”? Clearly, insofar as the price stays the same regardless of a person’s income, it is regressive. But then so is the price of a pint of milk; so is the price of a loaf of bread; so is the price of a newspaper. They are all easier on the pockets of the rich than they are on the poor. They’re all regressive.

Yet you won’t hear many tender-hearted Tories saying the price of milk is regressive. It would be meaningless. The price of milk is just the price of milk.

What’s critical is whether the pint of milk is fairly priced. It’s 55p these days, by the way. A second class stamp will set you back 66p. The price of the entire BBC TV, radio and online output is 44p per day.

You can call that regressive; I call it great value.

Branding the licence fee “regressive” is clever propaganda in the culture war, because it makes it sound officially, intellectually, particularly unfair. And it deploys the very language that defenders of the poor use when they complain about things like VAT hikes. If taxes must be raised, most of us prefer the “progressive” variety – those which reflect income. Using the language of compassion to outmanoeuvre and confuse opposition is a particular skill of contemporary Conservatism, and it predates Johnson. Cameron and Osborne were masters of it.

It’s a form of gaslighting really, and, like all gaslighting, it requires continual effort on the part of the victim to keep a clear head. In this case, clear-headedness means understanding the big picture – which, today, is the cynical effort to keep Big Dong standing, if you’ll pardon the grotesque imagery.

Clear-headedness means understanding that the attack on the BBC’s funding model using faux compassion and the language of progressives is entirely dishonest. This government’s record, when it comes to the treatment of the poor and the elderly, speaks for its unconscionable self.

Clear-headedness means understanding that a government with much to hide will always detest being held to account by journalists serving the public interest, and therefore will do all it can to infiltrate and undermine a public service broadcaster like the BBC. The interests of the people, particularly the vulnerable, are best served by well-resourced, independent public service journalism; cutting off the BBC’s legs only allows the ill-intentioned to run amok.

At 100 and still chipping in, my Dad has probably paid more BBC licence fees than pretty much anyone alive in the UK. After all those years of contributions, I reckon it’s his BBC. Johnson’s desperate, dishonest cultural vandals must not be allowed to take it away. Big Dong must not be saved at the expense of the BBC; instead, his demise should mark the start of the long road to restoring decency in this country – and, with it, the return of the exemption for the over-75s. Meanwhile, if the Tories are genuinely concerned about the licence fee being regressive, perhaps they would support the rich paying more?

Truly Massively Aggressively

It’s that time again. Charter Renewal.

It happens every ten years, but this time the government is openly hostile to the BBC.

So get ready for a blitz on the world’s greatest broadcaster in the coming months. It’s not going to be pretty.

BBC Charter

I want to call your attention to one line of attack in particular, because it is a crafty one.

This attack pretends to be generous. It pretends to be kind. It pretends to be a benevolent and noble defence of the poorest in society.

It does this by branding the licence fee as “regressive” – “regressive” because it is a fixed price which does not vary according to income (although it is free for over-75s, many of whom have small incomes, at a mean of below £15,000 in 2011).

This is an old criticism from the Conservative right wing, given new voice by the government’s man in charge of cultural stuff, the recently-appointed John Whittingdale. The Mail has nicknamed him “the minister for BBC-bashing” and he makes no bones about his aversion to the licence fee.

In the long term it is unsustainable… I don’t like the idea of a licence fee, I would prefer to link it perhaps to some other tax, and I think decriminalisation is almost certain to happen… Most people already accept that the licence fee as it is currently structured needs some tweaking… It doesn’t matter how poor you are you still have to pay £145.50 and go to prison if you don’t pay it and a lot of people go to prison every year….

Mr Whittingdale clearly wants us to think that “most people” already agree with him. He must have taken some pleasure in quoting his Labour opposite number in Parliament the other day: Chris Bryant, he reminded us, said in 2005 that elements of the fee were “regressive” because it “falls as a greater percentage of income on the poorest people”.

That quote was, of course, taken out of context – but it doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter because the key message is that the licence fee is regressive. Even a Labour man said so.

Be in no doubt: the intention here is to toxify the idea of the licence fee, in your mind and mine.

That’ll be why Mr Whittingdale has also called the licence fee “a flat poll tax”. It doesn’t get more toxic than that.

Isn’t he right? What the hell are we doing? We’re landing the poor with a bill of £145.50, and threatening them with prison if they can’t pay. Aren’t those on the Conservative right entirely correct to call this regressive and draconian? What’s so crafty about that?

It’s crafty because branding the licence fee “regressive” makes it sound officially, intellectually, particularly unfair.

Indeed, it calls to mind the very language that people to the left of the Tories deploy when they complain about things like VAT hikes. These people on the left hate regressive taxes, and prefer, if taxes must be raised, the “progressive” variety – those which reflect income. Using the language of the left to outmanoeuvre and confuse opposition is a particular skill of modern Conservatism.

And it’s crafty because I doubt you’ll find many on the left who love the criminalisation of poor folk who can’t pay for their television licence.

But this adoption of the language and sympathy of the left is not just clever.

It is bogus.

First, anything with a set price – which stays the same regardless of your income – can be branded “regressive”. A pint of milk, for example. A loaf of bread. A postage stamp. Their prices do not vary according to your ability to pay. Therefore they are all easier on the pockets of the rich than they are on the poor. They’re all regressive.

Yet you won’t hear many tender-hearted Tories saying the price of milk is “regressive”. It would be meaningless. The price of milk is just the price of milk.

What’s critical is whether the pint of milk is fairly priced. It’s 49p these days, by the way.

And, while we’re there, a postage stamp will set you back 54p, even for second class. But a day’s enjoyment of first-class television and radio will cost you just 39p.

You can call that regressive; I call it great value.

Second, it is not quite true that you can go to prison for not paying the licence fee. You can only go to prison for non-payment of a fine imposed by a court for not having a licence. Prison is a long way down the line in the process. And nor is it true that ‘lots of people go to prison every year’ – there were 32 offenders in 2013 in England and Wales. Which, given the brevity of sentencing, probably means that at any moment in time, there will be just one person in prison for non-payment of licence-fee related fines in England and Wales.

But I’m nitpicking. The precise details of enforcement probably aren’t what matters most in this argument.

The fact that any flat fee can be branded “regressive” probably doesn’t matter much either.

What matters most is that this supposed sympathy for the poor is not, to put it politely, sincere.

It can’t be.

Because if you were a politician who worried sincerely about the incidence of a regressive tax on the poor, you could play no part in this government. A government capable (among other assaults on the poor) of inventing and implementing the bedroom tax, a policy which slashes the incomes of 471,000 housing tenants by an average of £14.92 per week.

These are people whose median income in 2012 was £8996. From whom the government is taking £14.92 per week, or £779 per year.

If you were genuinely worried about the impact of a bill of £145.50 on the poorest households, you would never allow your own government to take £779 from those same people, would you?

Instead, you’d be fighting day and night for that policy to be reversed, repealed and consigned to the dustbin of shameful history – along with the poll tax.

After all, a £779 hit equates to more than five licence fees. With, trust me, none of the entertainment value.

And the burden of this tax falls not just “as a greater percentage of income” on the poorest.

It falls only on the poorest.

It targets them, it humiliates them, it devastates them.

It confronts them with eviction, food banks and debt.

So if you want to champion the poor by reforming taxes, start there, with a tax that really is regressive.

Truly, massively, aggressively regressive.

And if you want to attack the BBC, don’t dress up your arguments as kindness. Try a different tack.

Or better still, take a little pride in a great British achievement – the envy of the world – and don’t attack it at all.
Bedroom Tax
P.S. There’s a pattern in this use of disingenuous arguments. A similar strategy is being deployed to attack the Human Rights Act – see my take here.


Further reading:

Rowntree Foundation Report on Welfare Reform (the Bedroom Tax)

A Strong BBC… by Jean Seaton for Prospect Magazine

Culture Secretary says licence fee hits the poorest hardest – The Telegraph

Whittingdale on the licence fee – Guardian

Five Myths About TV Licences – Recombu