By a friend of Talking-up Scotland who received the above letter.

Dear Louise,

Thank you for your (redacted) letter above which will be recognised by millions around the UK, proportionately more so in Scotland.  Thank you also for at least one preceding email which I noted deploys a surreptitious tracking pixel leading to my blocking any further emails from tv licensing (without prejudice to my wish to be compensated for every instance).  TV licensing’s use of tracking pixels without informed consent is a clear breach of (Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulations) PECR Regulation 6 and I trust that many of those reading this will report the matter to the ICO with a demand for compensation for each recipient for every occasion that tv licensing has deployed a tracking pixel without informed consent. Please ensure that tv licensing retains its emailing data for compensation assessment.

I have used a random number app to date this post, ensuring that the timing of tv licensing’s emails, letters and visits plus my tv license default date cannot be used for digital fingerprinting purposes. I must admit to some frustration at the delay caused by following this procedure since you sent the above letter to my domicile with your printed name and designation together with your faux handwritten signature and it took only seconds to identify your Linkedin page: https://uk.linkedin.com/in/louise-short-0a7bb51. Please be reassured that I have not carried out more detailed skiptracing although I have taken screenshots of your Linkedin entries to ensure that I can demonstrate appropriate targeting of the correct person. I now openly reply to you on behalf of myself and the many others who have been sent letters in your name. I presume that the above letter is  “Customer Service” mode as opposed to “Collections” or “Enforcement”. My formal responses are:

Neither I nor anyone in my household 

1. Watches or records live TV on any channel
2. Watches or records live TV on any pay TV service
3. Watches live TV on streaming services
4. Uses iPlayer.

I have been fully aware of biased BBC reporting since reading the Glasgow Media Group publications Bad News, More Bad News and Really Bad News, not to mention the irony of subsequent self-censorship by BBC2 (‘Open Space’ 1985) in its coverage of those books. Michael Moore’s 1995 “TV Felons” satire on UK TV licensing in his TV Nation programme (yes, I had a licence at the times of both programmes!) still bears watching: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=BEEJpjBfhvg.

As does this more updated insight: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=QC7PJwIl2lY&pp=QAFIAQ%3D%3D&ra=m. 

I finally and legally refused to continue paying for a TV licence because all of the once-frequent (and much missed) visitors to my household of a certain BBC-watching generation had gone to the great production company in the sky and the above responses to the “Customer Service” mode letter automatically became true other than the (enacted) termination of any iPlayer accounts before the licence expired. They would be disappointed in me if I did not stand up to corporate bullying and licensing farce.

And I am justifiably angry. Justifiable anger being augmented by the recent appointment of Matt Brittin, a former google (!) executive, to the director-generalship of the BBC. NO-ONE, and I mean NO-ONE in a senior position on planet MetaXgoogle should EVER be allowed near public service in the UK…are you listening Nick Clegg? Interestingly neither Clegg nor Brittin has a formal IT qualification and Clegg openly admits to his technical ignorance. Do tech-bros admire these people because they have a non-AI-reproducible special talent, namely gross unctuous oleaginicity? Not so much an M.O. as a U.O. And I am justifiably angry at the targeting and huckstering of the financially poorer of society, dragging them through the courts (if they turn up – many are dissociated from bourgeois society) and fining and even jailing them (for non-payment of fine), even when they actually haven’t breached Section 363 of the Communications Act 2003 at all, disproportionately affecting women in the process. Why don’t you put some of this in your otherwise aspiring U.O. Linkedin links, Louise: https://www.theguardian.com/media/2024/feb/29/tv-licence-fee-scandal-1000-people-week-casually-criminalised.  

And this is what I have already started doing about it while waiting for the assigned random date to post. I am in the process of creating an app specifically aimed at the Capita enforcers (‘goon’ is so cliché) who harass and try to falsely incriminate ordinary people who are reluctant to turn up in court to defend themselves. It was inspired by the wrongly convicted (of tv license evasion) then exonerated Michael Shakespeare who subsequently doorstepped the home of BBC Head of Revenue Management, Pipa Doubtfire (yes, the names are correct) to hand deliver a letter of complaint in a dignified and non-harassing manner…but Ms Doubtfire, of course, reported him to the police: https://tv-licensing.blogspot.com/2018/05/tv-licensing-boss-gets-doorstepped.html. The app under development will require you to sign up to a guarantee of dignified and non-harassing behaviour before you enter from a mobile recording / photos of the Capita lackey’s visit their ID details, best face portrait from your recording plus vehicle photograph and numberplate. The Capita enforcement lackey will live within a certain radius of your postcode but will not engage officially with the public in the Capita stumblebum’s own postcode area. Between facial recognition software, address databases, social media scraping, DVLA data depending on the vehicle and AI assisted resolution of the above data it is easy to narrow down or even precisely pinpoint the Capita enforcement lackey’s home address and hand deliver a note to cease and desist from conducting further harassment on behalf of Capita / tv licensing. The encounter should be recorded by another family member for personal safety and security purposes, perhaps with the option of sharing via the app (working on it). They made an unsolicited visit to your house, so you are simply returning the pleasantry. But if enough bravehearts do the same….

And finally a BBC News transcript. “Matt Brittin, former google executive and now director-general of the BBC, after much deliberation (https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c20yjjm7n87o) has determined a new method of tv licence fee payment. Since TV signals traverse the atmosphere, each litre of air will have an associated nanopayment and a calculation made to assess the total volume of air utilised by the nominated adult of every household. Said adult has the option of refusing to take any intake of breath but must otherwise pay the license fee calculated”. Makes as much sense as anything else TV licensing is doing for the five year £456million Capita contract running from July 2022 to June 2027.

Dear Louise, the BBC should be shut down solely on the basis of its TV licence enforcement policy, let alone any other considerations. And good riddance!