Ask your MP

[Polwarth]

it's Melodeon Man, aka John Bearcat aka many other aliases.... he disappears for a few weeks after being unmasked - and then comes back and posts the same drivel.... YAWN

[NaRvIcK DeViL]

Taking liberties.................

In pre-Velvet-Revolution Czechoslovakia they used to license typewriters; in the UK we still license televisions. It raises money for an outrageously biased and smug state broadcaster. This whole system is hostile to liberty. It also has some odd consequences, not least in the retail electrical trade. The other day I was in Tesco, where I made an impulse purchase of a combined TV and VHS player. I did not possess a telly and they were being knocked out for under '100. I took a box from the pile-'em-high-and-sell-'em-cheap display, made my way to the checkout and paid with plastic.

Having made the purchase, a demand was made for my name and address. 'You've got to give it'' the cashier noted. 'I don't want to seem rude'' I replied, 'but I do not have to do anything.' 'You have to give us your details. We have to tell the TV licensing authorities.' 'I do not want to give the information out. I've already bought the television.' 'Well, write anything you want down on the form.' 'I don't want to write down something false.' 'Do you have a Tesco card?' 'What's that got to do with it?' 'You don't have to give us your name and address if you have a Tesco card, love.' 'That's because you already have the details electronically recorded.' 'I suppose it is. I'll have to call the manager.' 'Please do.'

Some minutes later, an assistant manager arrived accompanied by security ' an unshaven and rather thuggish-looking young man with a personal radio. This irked me, and before saying anything else on my right to withhold my personal details, I asked, 'Why have you brought this gentleman? I'm not a shoplifter, nor am I causing any trouble. I am just exercising my right to withhold my name and address.' The assistant manager, a mono-agenda woman of about 40, ignored my protests about security and continued on the same tack as the cashier (but in a more imperious tone). 'You have to give us your name and address. It's the law.' I got bolshy. 'Well, I had a grandfather who spent a year in a Gestapo prison just so I could refuse to give my name and address when I choose.'

The stalemate continued. It was clear that the store staff ' typical creatures of modern Britain ' really did not understand where I was coming from on the freedom issue. The lady on the adjacent checkout aisle had briefly raised my hopes when she asked, 'What d'you think of these ID cards, then?' 'I think that they are a bad idea and will not stop illegal immigrants or terrorism.' She dashed my hopes by responding, 'Oh, I like them!' Again it was suggested that I should write down 'anything' on the form. I borrowed a pen. Here goes: Basil Brush, The Kennels, Northampton. 'You can't write that.' 'Well, I have. You said write anything. That's just what I have done. Can I have my television?'

They changed tack. 'You've got to give us your name and address or you can't have the television.' 'But I've paid for it.' 'You can't have it.' At this point, perhaps I should have walked out of the shop with the television and risked prosecution for some unspecified offence in Kafkaesque Britain. I went for the less dramatic option. 'Well, I'll have my money back.' The first response from the shop staff was that this was impossible. They backed down when I pressed the point. I was directed to 'customer services'. A credit was made to my card. I left without a television. What a palaver.

Driving home, I thought back to the last time I had bought a television, ten years or more ago. I had a dim memory of being asked for my name and address 'for the guarantee'. It wasn't for that purpose, I now knew. It was a ploy to get the information for the faceless ones. I opened my front door. What was waiting for me on the mat? A letter from the TV licensing authorities threatening me with the 'shame' of prosecution for not having a TV licence for a television that I did not possess. Paranoia set in.

I might add at this point that this was but the most recent of several warnings that had been sent to my television-free home. They become increasingly nasty. The assumption is that every right-minded person must have a television. So, if no licence is recorded at your address, you must be in breach of the law: guilty until proved innocent. If you are not in possession of a television, you are required to write to the authorities to tell them so. Why should you? I had once wasted time doing this, but the letters kept coming.

And, now that my blood is boiling and we are on the subject of paranoia, what about 'detector vans'? Do you remember that campaign 'Watch out, there's a TV detector van about'? Apparently, the good folk from TV licensing were patrolling the country with radio direction-finding equipment, similar to that used by the Nazis to track down pesky members of the French Resistance and SOE.
The detector van, though, was mostly a myth. There were no more than a handful ever built; the real way that asocial, licence-free citizens were 'detected' was by means of a database of information collected by television retailers and discreetly passed on to government.

You may say that people should buy their television Licences. That is a point of view, but the argument against TV Licences is deeper. It is not just about the nature of the BBC and the way in which broadcasting is funded in the UK. It is about the centralised authority that has been created to collect the money, and the deceit practiced to do so.

Orwellian is an overused expression, but it definitely applies in this case. Big Brother is watching and he wants you to watch and pay. You can't opt out. There is only one answer: throw the box in the bin and give them the Agincourt salute.

[Scottish_Republican]

The big question is exactly why there is no Scottish tv channel. Ireland has three of its own, and around the same population. The Faroes even have one, and have a population smaller than Dundee.

The answer is obvious. Controlling the media, and keeping it largely London based/run, means that the Scottish populace can be told what to think.

That's why the Scottish parliament has no say on broadcasting whatsoever.

[Five-Finger Man]

Honestly, who wants one?

Jackie Bird aside, Scottish broadcasting is ghastly.

[Scottish_Republican]

Originally Posted by Five-Finger Man

Honestly, who wants one?

Jackie Bird aside, Scottish broadcasting is ghastly.

Yes it is ghastly. I totally agree.

It's particularly ghastly due to provincialism, and the fact that it is all run as a "region".

[NaRvIcK DeViL]

Give us £135.50 it belongs to us

For those of you who don’t live in the UK , you may be interested in the phenomenon that is the TV License – I was truly surprised by it after returning to the uk couple of years ago and having to pay it for the first time. Essentially, if you have a TV or receiving equipment, you are obliged to pay the government £135.50 per year to view the BBC channels.

Don’t watch the BBC? I’m afraid that TV Licensing doesn’t believe you. EVERYONE who owns an operational set must watch the BBC. They're compelled to. There’s something in the water.

TV Licensing ‘Enquiry Officers’ also seem to get a hoot out of slapping the threat of £1000 fines onto anyone within spitting distance. If you click on this link:-

http://www.tvlicensing.co.uk/information/excuses.jsp

This site describes some of the ‘hilarious’ situations they’ve found themselves in. I don’t know why these people think that roving around neighbourhoods harassing people is like a sketch from a comedy show.

I don't have a TV and my TV tuner card is gathering dust on a shelf. I have no way to receive the crud pumped out daily - I promise.

Nevertheless, this is the tone of one of the letters I have received. (May I note that it was bordered in we're-going-to-repossess-your-first born)

So here's the Jist:

____________________

Dear Occupier, (These people don’t know my name, yet are willing to put me in shackles for life because of all the ‘other’ knowledge that they’ve somehow accumulated. Interesting.)

WE’VE WRITTEN TWICE TO YOU ALREADY. (No, you haven’t. While I can accept that one letter might go missing in the postal system, I can’t accept two – which means you’re lying.)

WE KNOW WHERE YOU LIVE! (Yes. Yes you do. That's why I'm holding the letter from you. You do not, however, know who the hell I am. Mail spamming has these kinds of drawbacks.)

WE KNOW YOU'RE DEFRAUDING THE GOVERNMENT YOU DISGUSTING TERMITE! (I....I don't have a TV....)

OUR INSPECTOR IS COMING TO YOUR ADDRESS. HE WILL HAVE A TRUNCHEON AND A BUCKET OF LUBRICANT. (errr...guys?...I really don't have a TV…)

NOT HAVING A LICENCE IS A CRIMINAL OFFENSE, LIKE KILLING SOMEONE BUT MUCH WORSER (I think these guys actually watch British programming....)

FAILURE TO COMPLY WITH THE BORG COLLECTIVE WILL NET YOU A ONE THOUSAND POUND FINE. (Yeah, I gathered that from the ‘Big Brother is watching you, we know you don’t pay your license – you will be assimilated’ posters all over the underground, the shop windows and in the press. Thanks.)

WE HAVE VANS THAT CRUISE THE STREETS AND DETECT TV SIGNALS (Ahhh, kinda like the Death Star but without the latex uniforms?)

By the way, if you don’t have a TV, don’t worry. All you have to do is take the time out of your day to write to us and tell us and WE WILL BE IN CONTACT WITH YOU IN DUE COURSE. (OK…..why will you be in contact with me? I say I don’t have a TV, that means I don’t need a licence – burden of proof is on you, buddy. Oops…sorry, forgot that for the purpose of TV licence searches, courts pretty much automatically issue warrants. I guess I’ll just bend over, shall I?)

Us Brits give FAR too many of our rights away without a peep.

[Scottish_Republican]

I don't pay the licence fee anyway.

"Us Brits give FAR too many of our rights away without a peep."

I'm not a "Brit" thanks, I'm a Scot.

Anyway Narvick, why do you have to have a TV? You don't. Most of the stuff on it is pants, so why have one? Read a book, join a nightclass, take an interest in sport, even go down the pub....