She's linked to the House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee report. Politicians can't transfer a large percentage of funding from a direct Foreign Office Grant in Aid to the licence fee, a compulsory flat rate tax on every household in the UK backed up by an enforcement system and then issue a report complaining about World Service Funding. If they were that concerned they shouldn't have transferred funding over in the first place. I'm having difficulty recalling any objections to this from politicians when this was forced onto the BBC without consultation with anyone during a period of 72 hours. 180,000 people appear before magistrates every year for non payment of the licence fee, one in 10 of every criminal prosecutions in the UK, most from families who are financially
struggling.
The idea that UK households would agree to increase the proportion of the licence fee budget allocated to the World Service is unrealistic, those who pay the piper call the tune. Not only have politicians transferred the BBC budget over to licence fee payers they've also frozen the licence fee. All in the name of austerity cuts. The BBC can't be expected to increase funding for the World Service and at the same time make visible cuts in domestic services.
Mike
On Monday, 7 July 2014, 1:11, Art Preis <ap54@xxxxxxxx> wrote: