Sell BBC and give back fee – MP
Wednesday 25th July 2007, 7:21PM BST.
Wrekin MP Mark Pritchard has called for the BBC to be broken up and sold off and for the £135 licence fee to be refunded.
The Tory MP urged the Government last night to privatise the state broadcasting corporation following a series of humiliations and mistakes for which no one has paid the price.
He said the BBC had been fined £50,000 for faking a Blue Peter competition and an inquiry had been set up over the deception of viewers watching programmes like Comic Relief and Children in Need.
“No BBC employee will have to pay the fine, it will be Shropshire taxpayers and licence fee payers who will be out of pocket,” said Mr Pritchard.
He also said there was evidence the BBC had, in part, been the Bias Broadcasting Corporation in recent years.
“It is often not ‘Auntie’, but ‘anti’ – anti-monarchy, anti-Christian, anti-British, anti-Israel and anti-American,” said Mr Pritchard.
“Large parts of the BBC appear more interested in advancing a multi-cultural and politically correct agenda rather than listening to the needs and wants of hard pressed licence-fee payers.”
The MP said when he tried to table parliamentary questions about the BBC, he had been told it was a matter for the BBC Trust.
“This is unacceptable. Parliament is representative of the people and it is taxpayers who continue to pay the BBC’s rising bills. The BBC must be accountable to Parliament,” he said.
There were many first rate people working within the corporation producing excellent programmes, but these should not mask the “inherent and deep-seated rot” in many parts of the organisation, he said.
“The BBC should be broken up and privatised, giving every licence-fee payer free shares. The £135 licence fee should be handed back to viewers and listeners.”
Mr Pritchard said the Metropolitan Police should investigate allegations of “serial deceit and mass deception”, adding: “I cannot ignore the irony that TV licence-fee dodgers are more likely to face a custodial sentence than any BBC employee who might subsequently be convicted of deception or fraud.”
By John Hipwood
Shropshire Star on Twitter
Keep updated with the latest breaking news and content on our Twitter feed.
Lifestyle
Interactive Dining Out map
Hundreds of reviews by the Shropshire Star and Express & Star's teams to help you decide where to eat.
LIVE traffic updates
Road, rail and airport - latest
Our new, live traffic and travel updates service - check before you set out.
OUR NEW APP
Get the new Shropshire Star app
Download the Shropshire Star’s new app to your iPad or iPhone to get one week of access to our digital newspapers absolutely FREE.
shropshirestar.com
Popular sections
Useful links
In today’s media entertainment there is no reason why there should be a TV licence which funds the BBC. Their programming is not that very good either to justify forced fee’s. We are constantly told to move with the times, therefore shouldn’t the BBC move in that direction too and begin a system of.. If you want the BBC you should subscribe to it like with the many more prominent and most of the time, better channels?
The BBC daily news is a farce, usually the information they report is either not clear or complete (You only have to look at other news feeds to see this, and notice how overseas news channels seem to always carry more information on a report inside the UK than the internal news media namely the BBC do!) Their reports are biased and they don’t give equal airtime to issues that matter if they do not subscribe to the BBC’s type of politics.
Now been exposed for frauds too, ask yourselves: Do we need the BBC? No we do not!
Do we want the licence fee? No!
Can we trust the BBC? Definitely a big resounding NO!
Report abuse
Mark has surpassed himself with this one. Would he like this great organisation to be split up and sold to say and Australian (or is he American now!) billionaire or the like?
Of course if this happened it wouldn’t be biased towards anything would it?
Mark, I know you’re eager to get your face in the paper (god knows the Shropshire Star would run a story about you going to the shops!) but I get the feeling you’re starting to embarrasses your party.
Suffice to say, the BBC will be around long after you’ve been forgotten – why not concentrate your efforts on things within your constituency – and by that I don’t mean trying to stir up worry about your imaginary nuclear storage facility.
Report abuse
What a surprise for the Rt Hon Mr Pritchard to make such a farcical comment.
Never mind the fact that every commercial UK TV station has committed far more worrying and commercially corrupt offences.
The fact of the matter is that far from profitting from phone in competitions all BBC phone-in profits are donated to charity. While BBC executives may have made ill advised decisions I hardly see how they can be guilty of “serial deceit and mass deception” and to my knowledge not one BBC member of staff has been arrested to date?
On the bias point, to my mind if the BBC are anti everything Pritchard stands for then they are worth every penny of the licence fee! I guess he would rather we all watched mindless cr*p like Big Brother than have our eyes opened by factual journalistic investigations into the serious corruption of political figures and their institutions?
While I am at it is anyone going to own up to voting for this idiot as an MP?
Report abuse
He is presumably a big fan of the dross which ITV, C4 and Five churn out (and who, incidentally, are far more guilty of dodgy phone-in practices than the BBC are). And if he thinks Auntie is “anti” then I suggest he tunes in to C4 news occasionally.
Report abuse
As a conservative voter, I am appalled by Pritchard, once again. The BBC is not just about television – it provides the finest digital and internet services in world media. Pritchard is only in politics for “ME ME ME” and does not seem to have any real convictions or interests. I am impressed by Cameron but not by fools like Pritchard who will surely lose his seat at the next election.
Report abuse
I’m one person who wouldn’t like the BBC to be disbanded. £135 is a small price to pay not to see all those stupid adverts on other channels. I’d be happy to pay more to be honest.
I thoroughly enjoy the programmes BBC offer, even those bought in from America (Heroes anyone? FireFly?), often the BBC helped fund them too.
As for dodgy phone-ins, the BBC hasn’t been the only channel found guilty. Plus at least the BBC never came up with Big Brother (the worst TV show in history).
Report abuse
Why is everyone comparing the BBC to ONE programme from Channel 4?
I personally agree with some of Mark’s comments – the BBC (As well as Endemol from C4 as have GMTV) have been the in the news recently for fraudulent activities with regards to phone-ins. I would be extremely disappointed if it appeared that the BBC were conning people with relation to Children in Need and other large charity television events. We should not have to tolerate this type of behaviour especially when is the GBP who fund the BBC through the television licence. We are as a society accepting more and more unreasonable behaviour from these large organisations and paying for it financially.
The BBC should have a complete overhaul and people should be held accountable for their actions and if this means privatising it, then so be it!
Report abuse
The BBC have admitted to errors and misjudgements in phone in shows – but let’s look at their motives. In the case of Blue Peter, the misrepresentation was simply to avoid embarrassment of having a live phone-in fail on-air due to technical problems – there was no question of any gain for the BBC. In the case of Children in Need, the money goes to charity anyway.
Contrast that to the phone-ins for ITV, channel 4 and others by third-party commercial companies and the flagrant abuses – simply to make money, and you can see that the BBC’s failings are limited.
The licence fee is worth it for Radio 4 alone. Despite changes in TV and radio technology, and the way we watch and listen to programmes, the BBC remains the envy of broadcasters the world over. At £135 per annum – that’s not bad – with Sky you’d struggle to buy a year’s worth of ‘Monster Truck Racing’ for that.
Mark Pritchard has done nothing but embarrass himself with his oafish tantrum.
Report abuse
Well I think this proves the point that some people in this Country just don’t know when they’re onto a good thing! We probably have the worlds finest, and largest broadcaster in the world!! If you asked me what made me proud to be British, my first answer would be the BBC. Saving a pretty measly £135 a year would result in british television going right down the pan. Adverts at every turn for windows, bath lifts, and awnings operated by dogs!! News that slants itself to whoever happens to be writing the cheques at the time, and radio services with 4 adverts to every song. I would honestly say I’d pay £135 a year JUST for the BBC’s radio services, which are world leading, massively popular, and are on a whole new level than commercial stations. Just another reason NOT to vote conservative! LONG LIVE THE BBC!!!
Report abuse
Could we have an online poll asking who we would miss the most if they were gone – the BBC or Mark Pritchard?
Report abuse
….erm …. am I the only person who has never used a “phone-in”? I haven’t a clue what they are all about. I tend to watch factual programmes on BBC (2 usually) or channel 4.
Real factual, not made-up factual such as I imagine Big Brother etc to be, doctored to create a certain impression (read the Ben Elton book “Dead Famous” to get the background to the making of “Big Brother”).
Report abuse
I agree with Mark. The BBC are a biased anti British padded elbow jacket wearing bunch of lefties.
This really sunk in during the first Gulf war when I found some of the coverage so anti British as to be offensive and did nothing to support our troops on active service. Same goes this time and I beleive it has got Markedly worse.
Yes they make some good programmes- they should do with the money the get from us but surely privatising it would not affect the quality of programming.
Why should we pay the likes of Jonathan Woss £4million a year. If it was a private company then that would be their business but not in my name.
Sell it off and give us our money back!!!
more than 66 new taxes under this Labour Government- more to come
Report abuse
Hear, hear Tony, this organisation is well and truly past it’s sell by date. Compare it with Sky News – there is no comparison and we are made to pay for it. They spend our money like it was going out of fashion, even sending a different team of correspondents to each location for each channel. This includes sending out a “child” reporter for the kids “Newsround” programme at 5.30pm daily. It’s time reality caught up with the weirdos who run it and as for the “top boy” well, what can one say after his grovelling apology to the government over the Dr. Kelly business and his recent diatribe to his staff over honesty etc. It is a pathetic channel.
Report abuse
At last someone in government prepared to stand up to the injustice of this enforced TV Tax. It really does beggar belief that in a democracy someone can go to jail for refusing to fund a TV company. To all those brainwashed TV addicts – fine, YOU fund it via subscription and leave the rest of us with a CHOICE! Mr Pritchard please continue to stand tall, you have a lot of support from the increasing number of people who have finally had the scales ripped from their eyes!
Report abuse
Peter if you think the BBC is worth it then YOU should pay for it via subscription instead of expecting millions to subsidise your entertainment. If you think Radio 4 is worth it alone then perhaps they should bring out a Radio Licence for that because everyone else is sick to death of subsidising people like YOU
Report abuse
80%+ of the BBC licence payer victims will be applauding MP Mark Pritchard for those oh-so-true words, Shadow Culture Secretary Jeremy Hunt has openly questions the future of the BBC licence fee. Time to be rid, the BBC is too big for its boots!!
Report abuse
It really does beggar belief that J Marshall thinks a Conservative MP is `someone in government’! If there was ever a case for an independent, public-service broadcaster to inform the public, then surely he’s made it himself.
Report abuse
The BBC did a survey to see who would subscribe if they went to a subscription service,something like 80% of the country just laughed.
The BBC then went to the government and told them 80% of the public are in favour of the licence fee…yet more lies.
The whole corporation should be closed down,there’s no room for this archaic and lying broadcaster.
Report abuse