So far I've not seen any Labour MP agree with the scrapping of the license fee, which hits the poorer people in the community hardest.
It's amazing that we have Labour promoting a tax and the Tories talking of suspending/removing it.
Possibly because in the scheme of things the cost of the BBC is very little.
Doris made a huge thing about scrapping the fee rise being done to help the poor, but it's only about £3 a year they're saving, vs the £20 a week UC uplift she voted to scrap, and the tax rises she voted for.
It was one of the most cynical bits of nonsense I've seen from this government, and from a person who is an utter joke and doesn't know the basics about what her job, then doubles down when people correct her.
Every other alternative in terms of actual news and local service that has been looked at to replace the BBC either costs more, doesn't provide access to the whole of the UK, or simply doesn't exist - Doris's comment when someone asked about how they'd do a subscription was telling "97% of the UK has access to SUPER FAST broadband that can carry 7 channels", ignoring that just getting access to that is going to cost more than the licence fee, before any hardware changes needed (I can't think of any halfway reliable ISP that costs just £14 a month).
The only reason the Tories are talking about removing it is because it appeases their nuttier back bench and pulls the news away from their illegal activities for a few days.
Not even the rest of the media market in the UK is in favour of having the BBC go to subscription or advertising, as they know that if that happens it'll kill off half the other broadcasters, and massively weaken most of the survivors as the ad budget won't go up and the BBC will hoover up much of it due to it's audience share.
At the same time it would do away with one of the few UK companies that actively seeks out and promotes new talent into the industry.
119m just to collect the fees and 315m to entertain the rest of the world for free. 196m on comedy even though it no longer exists on the BBC...
How much do you think Sky spends on collection of their fees? How much do you think it costs to arrange and collect payment from advertisers? (and do the market research to make sure you're product is what the advertisers want)
Comedy does exist on the BBC, possibly more now than at any time in the past if you're willing to spend a few minutes looking at listings (which can now be done online rather than in the paper).
IIRC the "entertain the rest of the world" bit was paid for by the government until the government decided to force it onto the licence fee rather than as part of the Foreign Office budget (IIRC it was paid for by a grant until Cameraon or May), and isn't so much entertain, as broadcast news, something that the BBC has a legal obligation under it's charter to do, and has a huge impact on how the rest of the world sees the UK, and has proven time and time again to be the sort of "soft power" diplomacy that pays for itself many times over in the goodwill it produces towards the UK, and in helping get what at times is extremely important information to people (including British citizens abroad) in places where either there is no reliable source of external news, or no other news at all.
