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Samizdata, derived from Samizdat /n. - a system of clandestine publication of banned literature in the USSR [Russ.,= self-publishing house]
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Legal fight for Big Brother Corp A legal fight is being waged by a gentleman to avoid having to pay the detestable British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) licence fee. I honestly do not fancy the chances of a successful outcome to this fight, but good luck to anyone, I say, in taking on the BBC.
The BBC, as has been pointed out on this blog many times before and elsewhere by the likes of Andrew Sullivan, is able to get away with its grotesque bias in reporting on current events, its gloom-ridden soap operas and ghastly “sitcoms” because it is able to shrug off the bracing winds of consumer choice and competition. The BBC does actually have good people working in it (trust me on this). But unless and until the licence fee is consigned to the ash heap of history, expect no serious improvement from that organisation.
I always thought it was one of Margaret Thatcher’s greatest missed opportunities that she did not privatize the BBC.
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Who Are We? The Samizdata people are a bunch of sinister and heavily armed globalist illuminati who seek to infect the entire world with the values of personal liberty and several property. Amongst our many crimes is a sense of humour and the intermittent use of British spelling.
We are also a varied group made up of social individualists, classical liberals, whigs, libertarians, extropians, futurists, ‘Porcupines’, Karl Popper fetishists, recovering neo-conservatives, crazed Ayn Rand worshipers, over-caffeinated Virginia Postrel devotees, witty Frédéric Bastiat wannabes, cypherpunks, minarchists, kritarchists and wild-eyed anarcho-capitalists from Britain, North America, Australia and Europe.
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At least we know how Reuters feels about this. Sticking the story in “Oddly Enough” is an insult.
I don’t think he has a hope in hell of winning. Still, how can I contribute to his legal costs?
Yeah, the “oddly enough” tag is a pain in the ass – one would have thought that Reuters, which after all is a rival to the BBC, would have taken a more robust view of the matter.
Actually, the “oddly enough” tag is often used by Reuters to describe violent deaths and suchlike which comes across as pretty distasteful. Wish they’d used a different tag.
Poor dude…it’s would be like fighting against the glorius State in the Soviet Union
It’s always good to see someone stand up against a large monopoly (though the brave few who took on British Telecom in its days of unchallengeable might were much braver – people really did get their phones cut off and struggle to get another one at BT’s whim).
But wouldn’t it be nice to see this kind of opposition to a serious tax, like income tax? The BBC is a soft target – the easy way to jeer at the state. Try taking on the Inland Revenue, for example.
And do we all honestly think television for profit consistently produces better shows? Just compare the woodenly dull (and cheap-looking, though expensively-made) late 1960s Star Trek to the relentlessly imaginative (and expensive-looking, though cheaply-made) early 1960s Dr Who. Five years earlier but fifteen years ahead. I always found 99 per cent of ITV unwatchable. Was I getting it totally wrong?
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Are the main US networks any better? I ask because I genuinely don’t know but it seems that they are, in the main, just as bad.
If that is the case I wonder if there is something about the nature of TV itself that tends to encourage the adoption of a statist mindset.
Mark, did you just insult Star Trek? Them’s fightin’ words, pal. I don’t think Dr. Who had Harlan Ellison and Richard Matheson as writers, among others.
Dr. Who was pretty amazing for its utterly awful special effects, however.
OT: Who here has seen the Peter Cushing Dr. Who movies, and what did you thinkof them?
The solicitor should file a class-action suit against the Beeb, if you’re able to file those in Britain.
In fact, you guys should contact him, donate some money and join the suit. I’m sure you’ll find a lot of support if this gets out.
And send a note to SKY so it gets on the news. They’d love to hammer the BBC.
After all, the “will of the people” and all that. Surely Tony must listen to “the people.”
And do we all honestly think television for profit consistently produces better shows?
Mark, this is somewhat irrelevant to the issue. A lot of people think the work PBS does is very high quality, but that doesn’t change the fact that it’s funded through taxation. The utilitarian arguement says a free market serves up better shows because the viewers “vote with their remotes” and punish companies who produce material they don’t like and reward companies who create programs they do like. Therefore, the greatest good for the greatest number is fullfilled.
But that shouldn’t be the main arguement in this. Theft through involuntary fees should be.
Forgive me Alfred! Yes, I saw a Peter Cushing Dr Who movie. Dreadful indeed. Special effects? Well… dodgy on both sides, no?
Fair point, Charles, though isn’t all taxation a form of theft? And aren’t there bigger targets than state-funded television, as I suggested before?
I must agree that, by a utilitarian argument, the shows that most people choose to watch must be better. But when I look at those shows, they are enough to convince me that I don’t agree with utilitarianism. I know the idea of an objective aesthetic is old-fashioned, and damned hard to defend coherently, but the boredom I feel watching commercial television makes me want to try.
Why not attack the state somewhere where it really does damage – like value-added taxation, or income taxation, or its unresting efforts to introduce compulsory identity cards?
I can’t believe you’re using a 40 y.o. movie to make a point.
Did you ever happen to notice that after Star Wars, Dr. Who’s FX got better?
I would not begrudge the BBC my licence fee if they just put out content and stopped advertising their upcoming programs and other crap. I hate adverts. Ditto BBC radio, sack the DJ’s and play music back-to-back. Why does non-commercial broadcasting feel it has to ape the failings of the commercial broadcasters?
I don’t know, but I find the TV licence particularly offensive. It is regressive – everyone pays the same amount, so poor people pay a much larger portion of their income. There is an organisation that uses gestapo like tactics to enforce it. (Okay, this is admittedly true for most taxes). And its existence is based on the idea that I souldn’t be permitted to choose (and pay for, either through advertising or subscriptions) the television programs I want to watch. Instead, I should be prevented from doing so unless I have also paid for two channels that will somehow be good for me.
Absolutely to Michael J, above.
You can argue till apoplexy about content, quality etc, but it doesn’t matter in the slightest if you’ve been forced to pay for it. ITV is mainly balls, but at least they’re not extorting money from us.
The sneering lefty poop that passes for news programming (I think particularly of the cretinous news-bimbos on BBC News 24 and the self-congratulatory arrogance of the reptiles elsewhere) has been nothing short of a scandal during the war. The old ‘change the channel’ argument doesn’t work either when you’re forced to pay for this crap.
Strikes me that the BBC can just keep pouring money down the great media bog without a care in the world. Sod them.
Everyone’s pretty cross about BBC war coverage, which is quite fair, I think. But is that why we get particularly outraged about this tax?
I’m still a bit puzzled at everyone’s anger here – compared to how much more oppressive, intrusive and important the other taxes are. No-one is forced to have a television set. It’s considerably less useful than a PC. Try volunteering yourself out of other taxes for a change of perspective.
Sorry to rile you Sandy, but I didn’t use a 40-year-old movie to make a point! Alfred raised that one.
And I haven’t seen any Dr Who since Star Wars. In fact I’ve only seen one of the Star Wars films – I could only be bothered to watch ‘Return of the Jedi’ – perhaps not the best of the series (Obviously I don’t know) but it bored me.
Television as a whole falls pretty short of any reasonable book most of the time, which is why I haven’t switched on my television for two years (yes, Hungarian television is even duller than the British version, believe it or not) though I could watch it any time I want. I was paying for cable. I lost interest in that too and cancelled three years ago.
Let’s fight taxes and laws that matter!
Mark,
I take your point about books and so forth but TV can be a marvellous thing, so each to his own.
I’m much more annoyed about HMG thieving 40% of my non-existent wealth when I kick the bucket than I am about the licence fee, but it still pisses me off royally. Particularly when you know you’re being forced to pay the bloated salaries of tossers like John Humphries and that ginger rodent woman.
I reserve the right to shake my fist impotently at the arrogant reptiles and smug mejah bores who chuck millions of pounds down the bottomless septic tank that is BBC Digital etc, etc.
I’m going for a lie down now.
Mark, I agree 100 pct that government taxes are a zillion times worse than the licence fee, which one can opt out of by not owning a TV, but it still pisses me off that a television, which is after all the product of the free market, should be something one can only own on the sufference of a State-backed monopoly like the BBC.
I also think that abolishing the TV licence fee will be a very handy propoganda victory and morale-booster for the cause of cutting taxes more broadly. No harm in a few relatively minor victories, since it helps boost morale and shows that our side is winning.
Sunday Times columnist Jonathan Miller is leading a campaign to get the BBC licence abolished and the BBC either dismantled (yaaayyyyyy!) or put on a commercial basis. He is refusing to pay his licence and has said he’ll risk going to prison.
“…forced to pay the bloated salaries of tossers like John Humphries and that ginger rodent woman..”
Excellent comment! James Naughtie is my own nomination for top tosser.
I also agree with zack mollusc – I get pissed off at the constant ads and trailers for BBC programmes. By the time I’ve seen the “funny” punchline of a forthcoming sitcom for the umpteenth time, I want to throw something at the TV. In these instances, you can be sure that either a) the show is crap and they’re touting desperately for viewers or b) the show is half decent but any humour is destroyed by the constant exposure to the one funny bit in the show.
Alfred E. Neuman: If you want to see some more bashing of Star Trek here on Samizdata.net, then check out:
What really is annoying is that the BBC, in common with every other state-financed thing going, has started talking about the market and competition. Then the use the money extorted from us to millions to poach cretins from ITV to boost ratings. Noel Edmonds and the rest are basically on welfare.
Ian,
Too bleeding right- nail/head collision.
A simple ‘Google’ of the words ‘Johnny Vaughan’ reveals the following., courtesy of a BBC web page paid for by us. It is instructive.
“Yes, me and the Johnny Vaughan Tonight gang are back on your screens for a third series!
I’ll be with you five nights of the week on BBC Three at 11pm – for the usual blend of comedy, star guests, the occasional bloody rude question and all the other TV delights that makes you glad that there’s a TV licence to buy.
Remember – it’s your channel and it’s your show, so please send me your emails if there’s something that you want to share with the group: johnny.vaughan@bbc.co.uk”
I was at school with this particular waste of space, and he was a tosser then too.
Please feel free to email him on the subject of ‘TV delights that make you glad that there’s a TV licence to buy’.
What a tool.