Peter Rhodes on smart meters, TV licences and bribing the nation to good health

And now, from researchers at the University of East Anglia, comes a new, radical and dead simple alternative – bribery.

We are told that “clear evidence” shows smokers are twice as likely to give up the habit if they are offered “reward schemes,” including cash payments.

So what next? A new generation of anti-fat injections seems to be effective but they're so expensive they could bankrupt the NHS. 

If bribery works for smokers, how about trying it on the obese? You lose 10lbs, you get £100. For centuries, curing our ills has been the job of doctors. Maybe it's time to call in the accountants.

Having spent many years suggesting the TV licence should be scrapped and the BBC funded through general taxation, I can only welcome the news that just such a scheme is being considered by the Culture Secretary, Lisa Nandy. What could be fairer than paying for the Beeb through income tax or council tax? 

The rich pay more, the hard-up pay less and no more poor devils get locked up for non-payment of the licence fee. With only one proviso. Let us first have a national debate about how big and expensive the BBC ought to be.

In an age when some adult viewers rarely tune in to the BBC and kids hardly watch telly at all, the Beeb should learn to accept that its annual bung from the public purse should be less than it gets today. A lot less.

If smart meters were as good as the Government tells us, they wouldn't need yet another publicity drive; the devices would be promoted by word of mouth. But that happy day has not yet arrived and so the quango Smart Energy BP is launching a new campaign. 

It will cost the Government £38 million. By “the Government,” of course, I mean “us.” Proving once again that there is no money easier to spend than other people's money.