Reputation of the BBC being dragged through the mud (From St Helens Star)

Reputation of the BBC being dragged through the mud

8:47am Thursday 15th November 2012 in News By Reader letter

Reputation of the BBC being dragged through the mud

I wrote to you several years ago regarding the imposition of unfair taxes on the British people.

In that letter I included the following, “Perhaps we are reaching the point where we should refuse to pay these unfair taxes - another example is the TV licence, where our money is used to pay vast salaries and bonuses to BBC executives and presenters - who in their right mind would pay Jonathan Ross £6 million a year?

I support the principle of public service broadcasting, but not when our money is used to further line the pockets of the already rich. If everyone refused to pay, then changes would have to be made”.

We now have a situation where the reputation of what was one of the finest and most respected institutions in the world is being dragged through the mud, and the people who actually fund the BBC – the licence payer – has no input and is never consulted.

Who appointed former Tory minister Chris Patten – always around when lucrative jobs are being handed out – to the post of Chairman? I did not get a vote. We now discover that the outgoing Director General is to be paid a year’s salary of £450,000 for 55 days work which was riddled with incompetence.

I have nothing but respect and admiration for most of what the BBC does, but now is the time to set up a democratic structure for governance of our BBC, with regional non-political representatives elected by licence payers, and a chairman selected from amongst them.

I was attacked verbally by one reader who suggested that I refuse to pay and go to prison, and another who accused me of trying to meddle with the BBC and to leave it alone. After all the revelations of the past two months, do they still feel the same?

Mike Perry, Prescot Road, St Helens