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Greedy and ruthless officials of the State Broadcaster are cracking down on the poor again.
They've abolished the information tax exemption for 75 year olds in order to bolster the lavish lifestyles of their talentless presenters and increase the fabulous salaries they pay themselves.

The likes of Gary Lineker and Chris Packham need extra money to carry on their political campaigns and as we saw, John Sweeney spends over £200 every night on champagne whilst he's inventing evidence against Tommy Robinson .

This must be paid for, and if it drives a few war pensioners to the food bank or the grave that hardly matters to these socialist bastards.

How much more oppression must we tolerate from this corrupt and greedy establishment which denies the ordinary people the most basic essentials of life as well as the protection of law and ignores their votes to line their own pockets and further their freakish insane agendas ?

I think you'll find it's the tory government that have scrapped the benefit that labour introduced in the year 2000.

Don't let facts get in the way of a good story though.

The BBC were warned over four years ago that the subsidy would be phased out, so they had plenty of time to decide how it could be funded by internal cost savings. But no, they took the easy route by shafting those, many of whom are housebound and the tv is a big part of their lives.

Utter cunts as usual.

Revenge for voting the wrong way in the referendum. BBC hope to kill off a few OAPS so the next Referendum result may
bring a more desirable result.

It'll still be free for those receiving pension credit, and 1.2 million pensioners who are currently entitled to pension credit don't even bother applying for it.

Jon Gout wrote:It'll still be free for those receiving pension credit, and 1.2 million pensioners who are currently entitled to pension credit don't even bother applying for it.

No, they don't, because those forms are so intrusive, they almost want to know what you had for breakfast, every penny they have has to be declared, and woe betide you if you miss the odd tenner, you are threatened that failure to declare truthfully will result in sanctions or further investigation into your finances, I'm way off being eligible, but if the pension credit process is anywhere near the process I had to go through to get help for my terminally ill husband, (which ended up being 4 10 minute visits a day) and by 'eck do they want to know everything.

I know many elderly people have mobility issues so going out for a walk isn't on, they often rely on more mobile friends, often the same age, to get their bits and pieces, and the only voice they hear from getting up in the morning to going to bed at night is from the box in the corner, so they probably wont apply and go without something else to pay for the licence.
The TV licence for my house doesn't expire until September so I shall have to apply, but I will admit that now that I am on my own for the most part of the day I can understand how many living on their own and often more or less housebound rely on a human voice, albeit from the telly, so this is a backward step, but, of course, the highly paid knobs at the BBC just don't understand that many who rely on the telly for the sound of a human voice don't care or even know what it's like to live on a pension under 400 quid a month.

Good. This will finally destroy the bbc

The BBC spends £200m a year on "talent" and £1bn on all other staff. Funding free licences for all over 75s costs £750m.

Making your Linekers and your Winklemans work for free and halving the wages of all the admin staff would still leave a gaping hole.

I think a subscription model might work. Make a Netflix-style streaming service, £10 a month for access to all the shitey old shows that we already paid for with our licence fees and now can't access unless we buy them on DVD (if they were ever released physically that is) plus new stinkers like Bodyguard and that one with the miserable woman with her arms folded. Things like the news, Cash in the Attic, that one with three old birds whinging about consumer affairs, Match of the Day, etc, should be free. I'm sure they'd make enough money that way.

Zambo wrote:The BBC were warned over four years ago that the subsidy would be phased out.

The tories legislating to take the money away 4 years ago is still the tories taking the money away. Before 2000 there was never a blanket free license for the over 75s.

Maybe new PM Boris can divert a small amount of the 350 million a week going to the NHS post Brexit into refunding this.

The Ghost of Alex Higgins wrote:Good. This will finally destroy the bbc

The sooner the better.

Lou Grant wrote:

Zambo wrote:The BBC were warned over four years ago that the subsidy would be phased out.

The tories legislating to take the money away 4 years ago is still the tories taking the money away. Before 2000 there was never a blanket free license for the over 75s.

Maybe new PM Boris can divert a small amount of the 350 million a week going to the NHS post Brexit into refunding this.

If you want to turn this into a political debate carry on, but wtf does it matter who took it away. The point is the BBC have all that time to work out how they could fund the over 75s free licence without dumping on them, as they predictably have done.

I'd pay NOT to watch shite like Mrs Brown's Boys and Citizen Kahn and that new abortion of a Doctor Who.

Somewhere in the far recesses of my mind I seem to recall that, when this measure was announced by the Chancellor, the BBC was awarded an above inflation rise in the licence fee to compensate for them having to fund the over 75's licence, I am most likely incorrect, but I feel sure someone with a better memory will put me right.

AlcoholBrazil wrote:I'd pay NOT to watch shite like Mrs Brown's Boys and Citizen Kahn and that new abortion of a Doctor Who.

Mrs Brown's Boys is sheer drivel, I've only watched about half of one episode which seemed to rely on lavatory humour. gross bad language and smutty innuendo in lieu of comedy, the bloke doesn't even make a passable drag queen.

There will be no chance of any of the prospective Tory MP's for the top job, stating that they will re-instate this to look after the elderly.