OT: Victoria

[Tim Streater]

You should really try to cure your grocer's apostrophe syndrome. It lowers your credibility.

What do you mean by "as with broadband use"?

[RayL12]

Tum-tee-tum, '...as kids we would hear.....'. Get it now? The words were out that the BBC is hostile.

No idea what you mean? Expand.

Understand, when you use abuse, you are the one with the syndromes.

The BBC are now controlling the use of the internet and can challenge my viewing habits. The BBC have already proposed that ISP's reveal the users activity or, report if someone views 'live' TV programs online.

Because 'not knowing' a program is 'live' is not an excuse, being sent a link and viewing can be tentative. It's easy to imagine that there will be a future whereupon, the BBC can enforce the TV licensing payment via your ISP for a simple mistake. And, because this is a possibility, please don't bother with alternative thoughts. I wont be coming back to this.

[Dave Plowman (News)]

Snatches? Channels are licenced, and the use of them paid for. By whichever broadcaster. If that broadcaster can't get enough viewers etc to pay for that via advertising, it goes under.

The BBC never 'owned' any frequencies.

I do know there are lots out there who want to and do pirate all sorts of things. Music and films as well as broadcasts. And preferably advert free. All that means effectively is those who do watch them legally pay for the free loaders too

[Dave Plowman (News)]

And rightly so. Why should most of the country pay a TV licence - which effectively gives the BBC the income necessary to make programmes - while some viewing the same on a different format gets them free?

[tony sayer]

Not the BBC .. Ofcom decide frequency allocation...

[charles]

and before that it was the RadioCommunications Agency of the DTI. I know - I used to make applications on behalf of the BBC - Oh and earlier still, it was the Post Office.

[The Natural Philosopher]

I cant remember a time when the BBC *ever* was in charge of frequency spectrum allocations.

In fact the UK had a centuries old body - the General post office - that handled licenses of all mail telegraphy, telephone and finally radio communications.

That was all broken up around 1969.

I'll take the 'Radio Communications Agency of the DTI' on trust.

Never heard of it before.

OH. It seems to be part of OFCOM.

[charles]

It is now. When the GPO gave up the regulatory role it passed to th Ministry of Technology. When that Ministry was shut down, the DTI took on the job. The work was still done at a building across the roundabout from Waterloo station. They acquired a lovely new building in Docklands in the early 1990s and their old building now belongs to Kings College, London, and is called the James Clerk Maxwell building.

[Andrew]

75% of the population who pay less tax than the cost of the benefits they take out, freeload off the top 25% who do pay their way.

[Dave Plowman (News)]

You've been reading a cornflakes packet again.

Tell you what - get rid of that 75% and see how the 'top 25%' would get on. They'd be dead in a few weeks. ;-)

[fred]

I would have thought it obvious that if receiving benefits then one would not be in a position to pay tax.

Apart from which how do this 75% avoid paying VAT etc.? Has this been taken into consideration when calculating this spurious sounding statistic ?

[tim...]

It's a slight exaggeration, but it's not fundamentally wrong

Official figures:

"In 2014/15, 50.8% of all households received more in benefits (including benefits in kind) than they paid in taxes, equivalent to 13.6 million households. This continues the downward trend seen since 2010/11 (53.5%), but remains above the proportion seen before the economic downturn"

from

and yes it does include their contribution to taxes via VAT and excise duties

IMHO, it's a staggering statistic, which seem unsustainable

tim

[RayL12]

I like that.

[Vir Campestris]

Why would you think that?

When we had kids we got child benefit, and I'm damn sure I was paying tax at the same time.

Andy

[The Natural Philosopher]

Depends which 75%.

The terrifying thing is that you could easily get rid of a certain 75% and they wouldn't be missed.

[John J Armstrong]

Yes, quite right. Similarly, some recipients of Working and Child Tax Credits are liable to pay income tax. In addition, all these state benefits are themselves taxable, so if income less allowances exceeds the tax threshhold, tax is payable.

the State Pension Jobseeker?s Allowance Carer?s Allowance Employment and Support Allowance (contribution based) Incapacity Benefit (from the 29th week you get it) Bereavement Allowance pensions paid by the Industrial Death Benefit scheme Widowed Parent?s Allowance Widow?s pension

[critcher]

God ain't you all clever.

[Weatherlawyer]

No. The days moved when the solar system was adjusted, although it had been moving for unitarians hundreds of years sooner (surprisingly the Arab calendar is still way behind.)