writes a reader,
“and I am really quite surprised nobody has yet proffered it. It is as follows.
In order to ensure that MG Rover remains fully funded in perpetuity, all the government need do is introduce a Motor Vehicle Licence of say £116 a year, which would be payable by everybody who owns any car. If you own more than one car, the MVL would be the same, and if your car is black or white you’d get a discount.
“There are about 20 million cars in the UK so this would bring in £2.3 billion a year for MG Rover, a national treasure that the world envies. Thanks to the unique way MGR would be funded, it would no longer need to worry about producing anything people actually want. It would rake in billions a year whether anyone bought a single car or not, and no matter how third-rate its output, we’d all be forced to pay for it regardless.
“To ensure full compliance, the MVL would be enforced by the MVLA, which would criminally prosecute anyone caught without an MVL and would send detector vans around to spy on people to make sure they don’t own any cars. It would assume that anyone who says they don’t own a car at all is lying and it would harass them continually with aggressive letters and vague threats.
“At only £116 a year or barely 35p a day, nobody could reasonably claim they cannot afford this, and it goes without saying that everyone benefits from MG Rover’s existence even if they have never used one of the company’s products and never intend to.
“With an income stream on this scale, it wouldn’t be long before MG Rover became a bloated bureaucracy of 60,000 penpushing lefties all sucking a living off the state teat – God bless them all.”
If the Conservatives said they were going to jail everyone with a TV set who refused to pay for fox news there would be an outcry in predictable circles.
But when their ideological opposite does it, then that’s different.
malcolm_edinburgh,
“why does it have no sneering abbreviation for the Labour Party, the old Whigs?”
Probably because “Whig” has nothing to do with the Labour party: it was a term used to denigrate the forerunners of the Liberals, so could potentially be applied to them (as in this lot: http://www.liberal.org.uk). It could, possibly, be applied to the LibDems I guess, but that would be stretching things a little. Certainly nothing to do with the Labour movement, however.
“Whig” doesn’t really apply to anyone anymore, whereas there is a distinct line of descent from the “Torys” of old to the current Conservative Party.
Whether or not the the BBC should refer to the Conservatives as Tories is debatable, of course. I suppose it’s because everybody does it. Someone actually raised this on “The Daily Politics” a few weeks back. I forget who the Tory was now, but he said Andrew Neil could call him “anything he liked”, which I thought was a little over generous.
Sorry, bad editing on my part. That Liberals link should go here.
Cockney: You’re right, the Labour movement wasn’t even a twinkle in the milkman’s eye at this point in history.
the_camp_commandant,
“My kid watches CBeebies, so I’d subscribe to that for her, but I wouldn’t pay £116 a year for the privilege, and certainly not £450. For that sort of money, there are better options – second hand videos off eBay, for instance. Either way, it’s a diet of repeats.”
Nice to know you don’t skimp on your kids! 🙂
But seriously, the biggest problem I have with a Sky subscription is that I still have to pay for crap I don’t want to watch – I have to subscribe to packages, not individual channels. I know I have the choice of doing this (which — I know — is different from the BBC, yadda yadda yadda) but it is still an issue. Although you’d like CBeebies you’d probably still have to pay for the Celebrity Home Makeover Garden Challenge channel…
Mike, Whigs was a throwaway example of an old nickname for a political party which no one uses anymore. I’m interested in why its common parlance for a hack to call a Conservative a Tory, as in their usual opening gambit to Howard ‘Isn’t it the case of ‘same old Tory sleaze’ And they will happily call the participants at the Conservative Party’s annual conference ‘the blue-rinse brigade’. Which may or may not be true. However, they would consider it a disgraceful lapse to call a Labour Party MP a ‘Red’. The BBC isn’t even-handed towards the Conservatives, see their picture selection of Howard in the article below as one of many examples; they rightly fear a ‘Tory’ win at the polls, and it’s not good enough that public money is used to fund their ‘nuanced objectivity’.
An old, sneering abbreviation for the Labour Party?
Commie? 😉
Malcolm_Edinburgh,
You asked “why does [the BBC] have no sneering abbreviation for the Labour Party, the old Whigs?” I was simply pointing out that the Labour Party isn’t the old Whig party, so calling it so would be wrong. Considering people don’t like it when the BBC gets its facts wrong this must surely be a good thing, no? Calling Labour Ministers “Reds” or “Comrade Whoever” would indeed make more sense.
As for calling the Conservatives Tories: as I said above, it is debatable whether they should or not. Again, in a conversation about this subject between Andrew Neil and a Tory Shadow Minister (whose name I still can’t remember) he (the Tory) didn’t seem to mind too much. But then, he was on a BBC programme, so maybe someone was holding a gun to his head… Frankly, if this is all the Party has to worry about then it should be happy, IMHO.
Pinks?
To be fair, they should start referring to “the same old Pink sleaze” too.
I think “Pink sleaze” has enough connotations that it could be applied to members of all political parties.
Mike eagling
”the biggest problem I have with a Sky subscription is that I still have to pay for crap I don’t want to watch”
If you buy any newspaper I bet there will always be a lot of crap in there that you don’t want to read and indeed would prefer wasn’t in there.
Tough.
The paper is tryng to appeal to as wide an audience as possible – as is Sky – and, horror of horrors, try to make money at the same time.
And anyway, as you say, you can always choose not to buy a newspaper – again, the same with SKY.
Can you spot the difference with the BBC?
Being forced to pay for something you don’t want isn’t a yadda yadda issue, it’s fundamental.
“My guess is that probably 80% of the country want public service broadcasting and are prepared to pay for it. Whether they are prepared to pay so much and how they pay for it are other questions perhaps.”
I think that this is a very good insight. I live in the US, where people do have to pay for public broadcasting – and yes, it’s pretty left-wing, or as Americans say, “liberal” meaning left-authoritarian and not classical liberal at all.
So who says they want it? Pretty much anyone with any pretentions to intellect. But who is willing to pay for it? Far fewer people. the net result is that for significant portions of the year, public broadcasting turns into one long telethon as they try to guilt-trip people into paying.
I despise advertising, but I can’t avoid noticing that it seems to be the most effective way of funding broadcasting.
jon.
yoy,
“Can you spot the difference with the BBC?”
Er, yes. That was the point I was trying (and clearly failing) to point out.
Hello Mike Eagling
Sky subscriptions ”the biggest problem I have with a Sky subscription is that I still have to pay for crap I don’t want to watch”
I do not fully understand the point here. The only program I have watched on the BBC this year is Little Britain. The rest I really am reaching for the remote. The rest is absolutely rubbish.
I do not quite understand your point, but I am liberal minded, What is it?
PS: So the corollary is, given that I have only watched Little Britain, why should I pay for all the other disgracefull BBC programs, for example “the power of nightmares”, Pop something or other, the 2000 BBC employees employed on their crap website, …Why do I pay for such rubbish.
There is no argument other than this: If the BBC is as good as you say. Give the people the choice as to whether to but it or not . I.e privatise tha BBC.
The more an organisation can get money off the public without them agreeing the more left wing and political the organisation will be.
Why? When peoples livelyhood depends on constraining other peoples choices then out of self-interest people look for a framework that tells them that this form of slavery is moral, coerced collectivism is the only one that tries to pretend its moral.
That’s why they allways repeat the mantra of “public service”.
Can someone tell me why we should have “public service” broadcasting and not “public service” say, exhaust fitters , bakers or plumbers.
I can see the case or “public service” Education and Healthcare but surley the correct use of the airwaves is to open them to everybody at all times (open access Radio and TV in the US) and have one channel with which the government of the day can communicate with the people (if absolutly nessasary). I just don`t see the need for this Liberal Lovefest we must all endure. Whats it for?
Is there no analogous service in the UK like DirecTV here in the States?
For $50 a month, you can get a two-receiver setup, with the local broadcast channels (a lot for those of us who are in the NYC market), 70 or so cable channels, and a couple dozen music channels.
Not that 3/4 of them show stuff I’d be interested in, but I do spend far too much time watching Turner Classic Movies. 🙂
Ted
We hve similar offerings of multi-tiered packages, either via a small satellite antenna from Sky, or the same channels via cable systems. About half the UK subscribes to one or other tier of these services, so we are well used to the idea of subscription TV. We also understand pay-per-view.
Others can choose to buy a box for about $60 that receives off-air all the main terrestrial channels plus a bunch of new ones – all in digital format.
So we are well down the path to being able to abolish all or much of the BBC licence fee and have payments instead on a subscription basis related to usage. Blair’s government have ducked this issue, but if the election goes the other way the issue could be reopened very soon.
Selling off the analog TV airspace would raise enough revenue to cover the whole country with digital transmitters and give every home a digital decoder…
There is no excuse for the BBC entertainment being funded by the threat of jail.
“I do not quite understand your point, but I am liberal minded, What is it?”
I was simply remarking to the_camp_commandant that Sky — the nearest UK analogue to a subscription-based BBC — hasn’t solved the problem of paying for channels one doesn’t want either. A hypothetical Pay-BBC would probably operate in a similar way, so TCC would be unlikely to get CBeebies on its own; That’s unlucky for Little Miss TCC. That was it really, nothing very profound.
I am well aware that as it stands there is a difference in funding and choice between Sky and the BBC but didn’t think it was relevant to my specific comment. I was trying to point this out, so no one need waste their time telling me about it. Oh well.
Quite why anyone took this as a defence of the TVL is beyond me. If anything it is an argument for changing the payment structure, surely? I guess it’s because I failed to intone the expected mantra…
Rob Read,
“Selling off the analog TV airspace would raise enough revenue to cover the whole country with digital transmitters and give every home a digital decoder…”
Sadly they’ve already been sold off. That’s where Gordon Brown got his £22billion upon which he predicated Labour’s second term in office. It also explains why there’s such a current marketing exercise trying to get people to “go digital” — the analogue transmitters need to be turned off before 2010 so that the mobile phone companies can use the frequencies.
Malcolm, Camp Commandant and Pete London and possibly others:
1. To compare the licence fee with library fines is incorrect. The correct analogy is with council tax.
2. Name you one thing the public sector does better than private sector? Well I could name you thousands. But I would cite the road network. It is diffcult to imagine how the private sector could ever have developed a rational, efficient and cost effective road network. I can’t think of any examples world wide of a successful private road network.
3. There are certainly issues about what the licence fee should cover and maybe there should be a mix of licence fee and pay TV. BUt not many of these private channels offer TV uninterrupted by commercial adverts durign programmes.
4. Elections of BBC governors need not involve party politics. There could be bans on people who have associated themselves with political parties. Of course other reforms e.g. over job advertising also need to be made.
David
David Field
1. I didn’t compare the TV Tax with library fines. There is no direct analogy with anything, though the TV Tax and Council are equally pernicious.
2. You said:
“But I would cite the road network. It is diffcult to imagine how the private sector could ever have developed a rational, efficient and cost effective road network.”
Start imagining. I refer you to David S. Landes, The Wealth and Poverty of Nations (1998), page 214-215:
“At the same time [17th and 18th centuries], the British were making major gains in land and water transport. New turnpike roads and canals, intended primarily to serve industry and mining, opened the way to valuable resources, linked production to markets, facilitated the division of labor. Other European countries were trying to do the same, but nowhere were these improvements so widespread and effective as in Britain. For a simple reason: nowhere else were roads and canals typically the work of private enterprise, hence responsive to need (rather than to prestige and military concerns) and profitable to users…. These roads (and canals) hastened growth and specialization.”
3 and 4 are irrelevent.
The heart of the matter is this; do you think that I should be forced by the State to pay money against my will simply for owning a TV and that I should lose my liberty if I disobey?
1998 for the reference above.
“But I would cite the road network. It is diffcult to imagine how the private sector could ever have developed a rational, efficient and cost effective road network.”
Of course the Peage Toll Roads in France and Spain are purely imaginary….
Roads, Health, Education, Cleanliness, Space, Construction, Investment, Transport have all been done better when customers choose rather than Beurocrats take their choices away.
Rob Read,
“Space”
Do you mean “Outer”? This is one area where commercial ventures have yet to win out: there is no private launch vehicle yet, although I expect there will be one during the next decade.
Ah libertarianism, a philosophy no less ridiculous than any other all-encompassing answer for the world’s ills ending in ‘ism’.
BTW,
Those roads that you are taxed for are then used by foreign registered vehicles for free.And they dont worry about speed cameras.
Its a good job cockney knows how to spend other peoples money better than than the people that really earned it.
Pete London –
It was someone else who made the analogy with library fines.
Regarding the road network I was of course talking about a modern road network. In any case you miss the point: the turnpike roads were nearly all concessions i.e. the roads might have been built by private enterprise and they might have enjoyed a legal right to operate turnpikes but they were still mostly public highways. There is no example I can think of where an efficient road system has developed on the back of private enterprise i.e. companies buying land and building the roads themselves not at the behest of the state.
Are you saying you want to see the road system completely privatised like the rail network was?
You ask do I think you ought to be forced to pay for owning a TV. Well I’ve already made clear I don’t think it’s a very efficient revenue raising system. But in principle it’s no different from paying for a licence to fish or a gun licence.
Even if there was no public service broadcasting there would still be the cost of administering the allocation of channels etc to avoid interference and so on. That cost has to be covered. A TV licence is not in principle wrong. It’s jsut a very stupid way of collecting money.
Do I think you should lose your liberty if you don’t pay it? Yes. It’s the law, so you should pay it or suffer the penalty.
David
Rob Read –
Your comments are incredibly naive.
A toll road isn’t a product of competitive private enterprise it is a legal monopoly provided by the state. It isn’t the private companies who decide where the roads go. It’s the state.
Look at the French rail network, far more efficient than Britain’s . That wasn’t designed by private enterprise. It was government bureaucrats who decided where the railways would go and who then passed the laws to create the straight stretches of track. Private enterprise coudl never have achieved that through land purchase from private owners.
I think you and others are confusing
operational issues with infrastructure development.
“Look at the French rail network, far more efficient than Britain'”
I was on the ski-train in france two weeks ago. Frence railways are not that good! The carriages seemed older than Network South Easts. I got back to blighty and got straight on a nice air-conditioned modern train. Most of France’s beurocrat allocated housing looked like East Germany. All in All not very impressed.
There’s only one naive person here and his names David Field.
David
I’m not in the habit of having a discussion with those who will not read nor hear but I’ll have one more go. Look again at what you said:
“But I would cite the road network. It is diffcult to imagine how the private sector could ever have DEVELOPED a rational, efficient and cost effective road network.”
Read again the quote that I posted.
Much of the modern road network actually is provided via the private sector. Roads are only ‘public’ once they are ‘adopted’ by the local authority following completion of the road. It is common for developers to provided roads as part of large-scale developments. As for what you are referring to, ‘State-provided’ roads, whose damned pockets do you think are paying for them? Whose money is it? It comes from private individuals, people who have hauled their arses out of bed every day to work for themselves and their families. I know you like to imagine there’s a secret government money tree behind Downing Street but I’ll let you into a secret; there’s no such thing as ‘government’ or ‘public’ money. It’s all private. Roads development – private. Canals – private. Railways – private. London Underground – private. Much of the world around you is down to individuals and companies, not the State. It’s a common misapprehension.
“But in principle it’s no different from paying for a licence to fish or a gun licence.”
What? Are you serious? In theory at least fishing licences pay for the upkeep of waterways, something which anglers are supposed to benefit from although private ownership of land is (of course) a far more efficient way of looking affter such resources. Gun licences pay for a simple regisatration scheme, one designed to prevent ‘undesirables’ from laying hands on a gun and just look at how successful the State has been at that, eh?!
Your analogy is absurd. It should be with a toaster or kettle. The fact that you see nothing wrong in having to have a licence simply to own a TV says much.
“Do I think you should lose your liberty if you don’t pay it? Yes. It’s the law, so you should pay it or suffer the penalty.”
Truly contemptible!
Pete London –
Your style of invective might prove effective with people who believe in money trees but I prefer to engage with the issues.
I fully understand the nature of money. I’m glad you quoted it because it is yet another example of something the state can do more efficiently than the private sector – providing usable currencies.
Simply quoting someone is not enough to win an argument. Clearly the Wealth of Nations author is a Smithite and can be expected to make such claims. I don’t think they stand up to scrutiny. My basic position is that tolls are legal monopolies and that most of the toll roads from the period he refers to were not new roads but simply public highways put under private management.
If you look at the USA aswell you will find that their very efficient interstate highways were planned at the state level.
Yes you can have private contractors managing the road system but the road system is not something that market capitalism can deliver very efficiently without the help of the state.
Of course road systems have to be paid for. The consumer isn’t too much bothered to whom the money goes but a lot dislike tolls.
On the analogy of toasters if you must, when you use electricity part of that goes into paying for the upkeep and regulation of the delivery system. What is your point about TV licences? Are you claiming that there are no (substantial) costs associated with regulation of the delivery systems for TV? If you are accepting that there are such costs who should pay them and how? After all there isn’t a broadcasting money tree either.
Rob Read –
I think you fail to appreciate the point I put at the end of my combined reply. You are talking about the operational efficiency of the rail system. I was (perhaps could have made myself clearer) talking about the rail system i.e. routes and track infrastructure. I was pointing out that in France the state decided to develop a modern network with nice straight track so they could used the TGVs. Whatever their suburban system is like I think any objective observer would say their inter-city rail system is more efficient than Britain’s. My point is that I cannot see how private firms coudl ever develop such a system through private land purchases and raising investment capital themselves.
But if you do want to talk operationally there is v. little evidence that Railtracfk were a particularly efficient operator.
Tolls on French roads are legal monopolies granted by the state. Even if they are private roads developed privately (I very much doubt) they would have no worth at all unless the state let them join up with the public highway network.
“providing usable currencies”
The modern history of currencies begins with the invention of the printing press and that most destructive of economic forces, namely inflation.
Do you really believe that countries have done a good job with their currencies? It’s frankly amazing that you could possibly think that. I’m just stunned!
Rob Read,
“Do you really believe that countries have done a good job with their currencies?”
I’m intrigued. Please can you explain your proposed alternative system? Thanks.
Mike –
You took the words out of my mouth…
Although I would say that with the development of new technologies we might be entering a new era where private companies may at last be able to provide efficient currencies. I recall hearing someone once describe Air Miles as a form of private currency. But certainly up till now only the state has been able to provide efficient currencies.
David,
I’m looking forward to being able to spend my McDonalds vouchers in Top Shop. But then again, McDonalds’ logo is mostly red, so perhaps I should boycot them for being Communists…
David,
Surely a Travellers’ Cheque is basically a private banknote?
Camp Commandant –
No I wouldn’t agree about traveller’s cheques. They are basically a sort of parasitic currency that live off real currencies.
I actually think McDonald’s vouchers are closer to private money. But it is debatable whether you are using them to buy the burger or to be given money which then buys the burger. I think if you looked at McDonald’s accounts (not something I would ever want to do) I expect it’s the latter.