OMG, it seemed so simple.
The BBC gives promotional airtime to a neo-fascist 'politician'; a customer decides that they are unwilling to pay a fee/tax to receive such propaganda; a legally binding letter is sent to TV Licensing to inform them of this decision.
End of story?
Not likely, mate...
A standardised letter is sent out from the BBC Police informing one that, as 27% of individuals who claim not to have a television set are lying, a surprise visit has been scheduled. The letter claims that you must allow access to your property to enable these inspectors to determine whether you are, in fact, telling the truth or are being economic with it.
Once they are convinced of your 'innocence', you are allowed three years before these people contact you once again just to check that you haven't been tempted to return to the state propaganda format.
First, the simple bit...
TV Licensing have no legal right to undertake such a strategy unless granted it in court.
If you are in this position, simply cut and paste the following letter provided by our barrister, and email it to TV Licensing.
"I will not tolerate any visit by a TV Licensing Enforcement Officer at my address. Therefore, I withdraw from TV Licensing, its employees and its agents the implied right of access to my property at [ADDRESS]. Henceforth, no employee or agent of TV Licensing qualifies as an invitee to my property. Any such person who ventures onto my property at [ADDRESS] will be trespassing on my land, and I shall not hesitate to seek legal redress for the offence caused."
You will then receive a reply akin to the following: "My reply acknowledges receipt of your withdrawal to the right for a visit from any TV Licensing Officers. However, we reserve the right to use other methods available for the detection of television receiving apparatus."
TV Licensing are a private body and their enforcement officers are rewarded for their productivity in nailing non-payers.
TV Licensing are contracted to the BBC to undertake this enforcement but TV Licensing are, in Reality, Capita Business Services Limited, a commercial enterprise.
They prefer to utilise fear tactics rather than science to back up their agenda.
It used to be a running joke that TV Licensing vans parked on your street were simply empty Transit vans pretending to be something more Big Brotherish.
Nowadays, the enforcement officers allegedly have hand-held devices that inform them of active television use within a property.
The Stalinist nature of TV Licensing is exhibited in other ways that make the psychopathies of the Murdochracy seem positively light touch.
If you purchase any television or television-linked device, the dealer is under legal obligation to inform TV Licensing which is the best reason for utilising a fake address when making such a purchase.
The buying of a tv set or a video or a DVD recorder does not necessarily mean that one wishes to plug into the BBC and this should thought of as an additional caveat emptor when making the purchase.
From time to time, TV Licensing decide to make an example of a particular case, not because the non-viewer is behaving illegally but because their internal assessment suggests that the case is statistically likely to be an earner for their shareholders if pursued.
If one finds oneself in this position, it is possible to get a Court Injunction to stop this private organisation from harassing you.
Check how David Guest and his family de-Stalinised the Stalinists at http://www.marmalade.net/lime/david_guest.html.
And, even if you are a viewer and you lie to TV Licensing, so long as you already possess a criminal record, the gaming of the experience may work to your advantage.
Not, of course, that we should suggest such a tactic.
The average fine if found guilty of Lying To Stalin is £153, just ten pounds and fifty pence more than the cost of the licence in the first place (although you would, obviously, have to purchase a licence to continue viewing).
So, so long as you can string the bastards along for 56 weeks or more, you are quids in!!
In a rather excellent piece of numerological correlation, the BBC disclosed that in 2005/06, it cost £153 million to hassle members of the public over the TV Licence, 73% of whom were acting entirely legally.
On a train journey back to Manchester last week, I discovered a copy of the Manchester Evening News on the seat opposite.
In it, they disclosed that the new head of BBC in Salford, Caroline Thompson, claimed over £4,000 on taxi fares in just three months.
She earns £413,000 per annum.
In total, the BBC spends over £25 million per year on taxis for senior staff.
And then there is Ross and Paxman and Wark and Peston and Vine and Hansen and Lineker and Brand and Dimbleby and Humphrys and, last but not least, Nick Griffin...
As lime@marmalade.net states: "One cannot simply refuse this entertainment service, without appearing to be dishonest in the eyes of TV Licensing™... The non-viewer does not fit into their framework. To TV Licensing™ there are licence-payers and licence-dodgers and the non-viewer (with whom they really have no business) is treated as a suspect licence-dodger.
"'I wish there was a knob on the TV to turn up the intelligence. There's one called brightness, but it doesn't work.' — Eugene P. Gallagher.
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