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BBC licence fee is not unique
Oh dear! Here we go again!
Two consecutive letters on the same night whinging about the BBC. Both moan about the licence fee. This is a reasonably common way of financing public broadcasting. Some countries have abolished it in favour of funding from general taxation, while at least one country, Germany, charges a fee to all households irrespective of whether they possess or use a television.
Chris Smith refers to "DEI" - a strange Americanism when discussing a British institution - while Keith Jones explicitly refers to the BBC as "left-wing", and indeed asserts that "we all know" that this is the case. This prompts the rather interesting question of who lurks behind the pronoun "we". It certainly doesn't include the late Greg Philo and his colleagues who spend decades analysing the output of the BBC and finding it reliably backed elite, ruling-call narratives. The claim that the BBC is in any sense "left-wing" is almost endearingly daft, given that it has constantly been led by rightward inclined figures from Reith onwards, including most recently Tory figures like Tim Davie and Robbie Gibb.
Alan Harrison, Midlands
