Oh my, what a furore over the BBC’s plan to scrap
the Brucie Bonus of free TV licences for the over 75s in June next year.
My take on this is simple - if you can afford it,
pay it, no matter what your age.
After all, the £154.50 annual fee works out at
£12.88 a month. That’s three pints of beer, a packet of cigarettes or a
takeaway pizza a month.
Undoubtedly those less well off in society should
get the licence for free.
But how does one decide what “less well off”
means?
Well, a good starting point is maintaining the
free licence for those claiming pension credits.
Did I really write that out loud? Me, agreeing
with something the Government’s proposing?
This saga might well prove to be the catalyst for
the BBC to do something about the salaries it pays its so-called “top talent”.
Based on the Corporation’s own figures, the top 74
earners were paid a total of almost £20,000,000 a year in 2018 – an average of
around £270,000.
Top of the pile, as has been well-documented, is
Match of the Day presenter Gary Lineker on £1.75 million. At the bottom are 28
people on AT LEAST £150,000 pa. This list includes Adrian Chiles, Clare
Balding, Mary Berry and Trevor Nelson.
That sum equals 129,000 annual TV licences. I
realise that figure is a tiny proportion of the
4.6 million or so households that contain someone
aged over 75 who receives a free TV licence at present but wouldn’t cutting
these frankly ridiculous salaries be a good starting point?
Answers on a postcard, please.
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