BBC License Fee Abolition Bill

There is a Private Member's Bill being discussed in the House of Commons today that calls for the scrapping of the BBC License Fee.

Personally, I appreciate both sides of the argument - that the BBC needs a secure stream of funding to continue to produce world class programming (at which point I should add that I welcome their announcement that they plan to produce more programmes in Wales), but alternatively that the License Fee can be seen as a sort of poll tax on every family with a television, a regressive tax that takes into account neither usage of BBC services nor the ability to pay.

Unfortunately, while listening to the debate in the background I saw a pop-up of one of those mildly threatening TV license fee detector van adverts. 'We know where you live'.

What better advertisement for the Big Brother society?