Knock at door: open door to find a scruffily dressed individual with photo-ID round his neck
CUT Crusader St Cecilia writes:
Just a note for CUT Catholics wondering what’s the best way of demonstrating their dislike of television culture and the BBC specifically.
Like many sensible Catholics I have not
owned a television for twenty years or more. But I used to respond –
religiously! – to letters from the TV licensing authority to confirm that I did
not access TV services in any way which required a licence. On three occasions
when I did not respond I received a visit from an enforcement officer (of which
more below).
However, I became so disgusted at the
immoral and increasingly anti-Christian (and pro-Islam) antics of the TV
companies (as legally viewed on Youtube etc) that in August 2022, on receiving
a TV licensing letter asking me to confirm my status, I decided to refuse to
respond ever again. And so I entered a quite farcical roundabout dance in which
I received every month letters demanding that I respond or face a series of
escalating threatened actions – unannounced visits at any time of the day or
night, prosecutions, fines, a criminal record etc. Well, I never received so
much as a single visit: even when the TV authorities gave me a specific day on
which I should expect a visit no one ever turned up! And after the TV licence
people had fired their heaviest shots, the monthly sequence of letters would
return to its starting point and I would receive a humble reminder that I had
forgotten to pay for a licence and would I kindly now do so!
And so this monthly carousel continued
non-stop until May 2025, always following the same pattern from polite
reminders to ferocious threats. Curiously, I have received no further letters
since May – presumably the licence people have finally concluded that I am not
going to play their game and have turned their attentions to more likely
victims. Perhaps the fact that I have now turned seventy-five has influenced
them, although, of course, the money-guzzling BBC insists on gouging the
licence fee out of seventy-five year olds and over unless they receive certain
benefits. (How extraordinary that a single BBC luvvie – Nick Robinson for
instance, who does but a few hours BBC work per week – receives over £400,000
of licence-fee payers’ money each year just for preening his ego over the
airwaves.)
I think I’m right in saying that the private
company SERCO handles the TV licensing contract; I assume they take a
cost-benefit approach to gathering money, so if it looks too pointless in an
individual case they will simply write it off and chase someone else. So my
suggestion to others is from now on simply ignore all letters, e mails etc and
refuse ever to respond. If the result is a visit from an enforcement officer,
so what?
As I said, I have had three such visits over
the years. In each case they followed the same pattern:
Knock
at door: open door to find a scruffily dressed individual with photo-ID round
his neck (uniforms appear to be dead and buried!)
Officer:
“Are you Mr X?” Me: “I am.”
Officer:
Are you the owner of this property?” Me: “I am.”
Officer:
“Do you use a television on the premises?” Me: “No.”
Officer:
“Thank you. We’ll update our records. Goodbye.”
And
the officer (pretty obviously a local person casually employed) beats a hasty
retreat, thinking that for the wage he gets paid he is not going to risk any
“argy-bargy.”
Such has been my history of TV licensing
visits. The last visit was in, I think, 2021; perhaps they have changed their
methods since then.
Addendum
Perhaps I spoke too soon: after a couple of months without reminders, suddenly the letters have begun again; presumably they will follow the same pattern as before. It makes no difference to me: I shall not respond. If they wish to waste licence fee payers’ money on a pointless endeavour, well that’s up to them.
