Scrap the whole damn TV licence system

THE television-licence system is so stupid that it could only have been dreamed up by civil servants, writes Peter Rhodes.

First, you create a monstrously expensive BBC which is watched by virtually every household in the land.

Then you invent an enforcement system which contacts every household to make sure they are all paying £145.50 per year (or less if they are blind, or nothing if they are over 75).

Then you buy fleets of detector vans to make sure they're all telling the truth.

Then, because the licence is so expensive, you have to invent savings stamps for the less well-off. In a sane world, a new government would sweep this outdated nonsense off the face of the earth.

Instead, the Culture Secretary Jeremy Hunt is seriously suggesting extending it, with licence fees to be demanded of anyone who watches TV programmes on a computer.

Why stop there, Jeremy? How long before the detector vans are pouncing on people watching EastEnders on laptops or the latest generation of mobile phones?

It is all cobblers, man. Scrap the whole damn system.