Dear Mr Shimeild,
After very careful consideration I have decided to withhold payment of my TV licence.
Over many years I have become increasingly dismayed at the institutionalised political bias displayed by the BBC on TV and Radio, primarily in its news and current affairs programmes, but in its output generally.
There have been many instances of the political bias displayed by the BBC over many years. They are too numerous to report here but they are well documented.
The BBC has been long and consistently in breach of the Agreement accompanying its Charter which clearly states in the Regulatory Obligations on the UK Public Services (Note 44) that, ‘The BBC must do all it can to ensure that controversial subjects are treated with due accuracy and impartiality in all relevant output’. The same Agreement also states that the ‘relevant output’ means the output of an UK Public Service which ‘deals with matters of public policy or of political or industrial controversy’.
In my view this constitutes a contract between the BBC and the licence payer, and
as the BBC are in breach of this contract therefore I am under no obligation to pay
the licence fee until the BBC meets its side of the contract. Why should I, as a
member of the public, pay £142.50 for the privilege of allowing the BBC to report
and comment on news and current events in promotion of its own biased political agenda?
This is particularly noticeable in relation to reporting on the European Union, about
which I happen to know something, and so-
Yours sincerely,
Gerard Batten,
Member of European Parliament for London
To Carl Shimeild, Operations Director, TV Licensing
Copied to Mark Thompson, Director General, BBC
31 August 2009