The Guardian’s Poll Tax Moment
Yesterday the Guardian‘s very own ‘public-interest’ phone-hacker David Leigh announced a salvation plan for the beleaguered paper: a £2-a-month levy on every household broadband bill to bail out bankrupt newspapers. That’s right, they aren’t making money because people are not buying their papers, so they are now demanding a bailout. Leigh’s proposal argues:
“A small levy on UK broadband providers – no more than £2 a month on each subscriber’s bill – could be distributed to news providers in proportion to their UK online readership. This would solve the financial problems of quality newspapers, whose readers are not disappearing, but simply migrating online. There are almost 20m UK households that are paying upwards of £15 a month for a good broadband connection, plus another 5m mobile internet subscriptions. People willingly pay this money to a handful of telecommunications companies, but pay nothing for the news content they receive as a result, whose continued survival is generally agreed to be a fundamental plank of democracy. A £2 levy on top – collected easily from the small number of UK service providers (BT, Virgin, Sky, TalkTalk etc) who would add it on to consumers’ bills – would raise more than £500 million annually. It could be collected by a freestanding agency, on the lines of the BBC licence fee, and redistributed automatically to “news providers” according to their share of UK online readership.”
The irony of this suggestion coming from inside Guardian towers has not been lost on media commentators across the spectrum. Regular readers will be well-versed in the hypocrisy of the editor Alan Rusbridger, who is also a director of Guardian Media Group, overseeing editorials on tax avoidance, high pay and spending cuts whilst sitting on the parent company board which shelters assets and cash in the Caymans. Rusbridger trousers half-a-million pounds per year while staff are fired by the dozen. Now they want a bailout, a £2-a-month levy on every broadband user in the country is a tax that would be as regressive as they come. This is the Guardian’s poll tax moment.
Guido has been saying it for years, this is yet further evidence that the less popular newspapers are thrashing about in their final death throes. Under threat from an ever-stronger online industry much of the print media can no longer sustain itself. Paywalls kill readership, news content is almost always available for free and – in the age of Twitter – papers are reporting yesterday’s news. This year the Guardian made losses of £75.6 million. Roy Greenslade asks “has David Leigh cracked it?” A more appropriate question would be whether Leigh, and his paper, have finally cracked up.
dead tree press
I don’t think my ISP would be best pleased. £2 a month is nearly a third of my unlimited BB monthly bill inc free anytime phone calls.
What planet do the Guardianistas live on when they think £2 is a small sum of money? Lefty Toffs born with a silver spoon in their lying mouths
It’s rather amusing though to think that Guardian people, if they think £2 a month is not a problem, must be thickos and paying through the nose for their internet. But then, I suppose we already knew they were thick.
They are probably the sort who think £40 a month for a mobile phone contract plus internet is the going rate.
£2 extra on the “road tax” could be used ensure the continued existence of the british buggy-whip manufacturing industry!
I think the problem could easily be solved by a £2 levy on newspapers.
…on second thoughts, there also ought to be a tax on printing presses to subsidise calligraphers.
My blog would benefat from a one pound levy per month of everybody, and even less people rad that than read the guardian
Is this the Tuscany Saviour Plan
You’d think the Guardian would tap into that profit potential by becoming an ISP themselves, and offer their publication as part of a bundled package if its so great.
Oh, wait, no – that would be a business plan. Can’t have that. Too Tory.
Errr….excuse me…..we are already paying a subsidy for the Gurnyad….it’s called the Licence Fee or Telly Tax….
We all pay this poll tax to maintain the BBC Liberation Front…..which promptly spends our dosh in propping up the Hate Sheet…..by advertising all it’s cushty jobs in it’s recruitment pages and then subscribing to thedead tree toilet paper.
The idea is not new.
Guardianistas, “£2 a month is nearly a third of my unlimited BB monthly bill inc free anytime phone calls.”
Which ISP do you use? I assume you pay line rental on top.
I think I am being robbed by my ISP.
I wonder how many on JSA could afford to pay £2 per month on top of their
expenditure for ciggies, alcohol and betting.
That will make the Murdochs even richer
Leigh is a tosser, I already pay enough for he TV Licence to be fed left wing shite, I don’t want to pay for Leigh to spout economic hatred to me
Fuck off Leigh
They love making you pay for their shite. The BBC is one big slush fund playground for the fucking lot of them. Why would the print arm of the BBC not expect some free cash too?
Pay a Grauntax? The very suggestion makes my blood boil.
What I’m eagerly awaiting is for the Graun to go bankrupt and close – bailing them out isn’t on my agenda.
But where would I publish my twaddle?
How will I fund my villa?
Who will pay me mucho moolah for writing about “vicious tory cuts ™”?
Where? How? Who?!?!!!?!?!?
The Guardian? Mardy ‘un is more like it.
You have to remember that keeping up Polly’s Tuscan villa doesn’t come cheap!
In her world – where what’s ours is hers – we should actually feel honoured to make a small personal sacrifice so that her hypocritical sermonising to us little people may continue..
I propose a £2 tax on each bag of that new-fangled nitrate stuff, this could subsidise the ailing horse-shit industry.
Oh, and open and shut that hand painted door.
It is time to let the cat out of the bag;the falling readership is beceause even the NUT is getting sick and tired of the crap from the likes of Moonbat and Polly Toodle, and as for that clown of an editor………words fail me.
IF this catches on we could do a tax on the rich to pay for the poor!!
up!
No reward for failure!
Is there anything in this for me and my boys? Boaz.
Except for NuLabour – it’s just all Balls.
Axe the telly tax
will soon be
Axe the MSM tax
Why does he think the graudian has a right to levy taxes and access taxpayers money to keep a failing newspaper going? It’s a private business isn’t it? And as such it either makes a profit or goes under. Talk about breath-taking cheek!!
Mind I suppose bumblingvince might think its a good idea- kowtowing to a leftie newspaper and all that.
Socialists don’t see it as your cash. Your cash is only potential government cash untapped. Of course their cash is different to yours.
I suspect that they think their sh*t is different from normal people’s sh*t. It fertilisers vast tracts of Tuscany.
Who guards the Guardian?
That is the question.
Isn’t it Ian? Guard Ian
Obviously they are guarding Ian. He wanted to know who is guarding Polly’s cash cow.
If such a policy was put into action, could this blog not classify itself as a “news provider” and get a large chunk of the money?
Guido would become immensely well funded (or drunker and fatter).
Bar King
HEY! What about us?
Let’s have a mine tax….sorry… subsidy!
Can we have some too? Oops, too late.
What a complete pratt, they will not get any of my money to help pay for a failed newspaper, it is full of rubbish anyway, it is time that they entered the real world. My advice is to pack the idiots paper up.
No mention that the press are being screwed by the free access to the BBC’s news websites.
If the Guardian is so damn good, why are so few people buying its papers?
BBC access is not free. It’s paid by YOU via another poll tax, irrespective of whether you use their sites.
could not ledbedev take it over and give it away for free as he does the evening standard ???
Perhaps Ledbedev has an independent mind, like all the Russian mafia he only backs winners, the Guardian is certainly not in that league.
Great response in the letters:
A £2-a-month levy on automobiles could save our horse and cart business
There’s a boat-load of great responses in the comments to Roy Greenslade’s article.
It’s a non-stop, no-holds-barred, good-old-fashioned shoeing, and a joy to behold.
Some of these CIFers do have a sense of humour. They’re probably the righties like me who love winding Guardianistas up.
It’s almost a new sporting craze. The problem is it’s so easy, getting round the Guardians (Moderators) can be a challenge, but if you follow simple rules it can be done.
There are some writers (who can’t be challenged) Toynbee being the most obvious, but since most of the CiFers are morons it can be done. Praise of Cameron, Conservatives, Osborne will get deletions, Praise for Broon, Blair, Meddlesome will ensure Mods stay away.
Not being funny, but newspapers sell online advertising space, which s not cheap, due to the amount of monthly traffic they receive. It’s not consumers fault that they don’t buy papers, it’s just another example of archaic organisations not being able to keep up in a digital age, like the Music and Movies industry.
As not shown on the BBC.
At least if they’re wittering on about their p43dophile whilst in the park, they’re not busy grooming schoolgirls.
Ain’t that Catholic priests jobs?
All god bothering is shit.
Just another name for GodShite darling.
Now try to picture the scene if an Asian wandered round a B&P rally with a video camera. One suspects the video would be a little shorter.
You a brooming iriot ah so
fast-forward to 6.45 and i swear i saw a cider soaked tramp the other night singing this rather catchy ditty.
If they don’t like it here why don’t they leave and go to a Musl*m country?
I do not want any of my money going to prop up the Guardian. I don’t even want to read the Auto Trader because it is propping up that disgusting rag.
Maybe the Guardian could see if those who they have politically supported such as Hamas will give them a financial leg up.
TBH the Guardian is a pretty good newspaper.
Oink! Flap! Oink! Flap!
No, it used to be a reasonable newspaper. Now it is like a student rag written by tossers.
For lining a cat litter tray maybe. I’ve no desire to read it though.
My cat refuses to go if I use the Guardian to line his tray. It’s this morning’s FT or nothing.
You should try shredding the Guardian up into little pieces so that cat doesn’t realise they are crapping on something that is already full of crap.
It’s the left wing version of the daily wail, except without the vast paying readership.
Let’s call it an ” Outcome Tax “
It’s just predistribution. You give them the money and then see the content later, if you don’t like it, tough.
Cheeky sods, they helped to put the country in the mess we are in, how about getting more taxes from them, must be loads at the Gridiron trough let’s tax the one’s earning over £30,000, 99p in the £, that’ll help them concentrate their lefty minds a bit.
If the BBC didn’t get so many copies, the Garudina would have folded. Good job too.
What about the plebs ?
The Guardian is not aimed at the plebs. Its for us.
I’m sure that the Guardian is not required reading for Conservative Whips, I believe that Max Mosely has told Mitchell he is available for advise on whipping.
This actually makes exactly as much sense as bailing out other bankrupt industries (ie. none at all) so I expect it to happen.
Absolutely LOVE a huge bunch of the commenters there who think it’s a great idea but then suddenly slam the brakes on and disagree with it going ahead with it because this simpering brainiac of a scheme may somehow find their ‘hard earned’ ‘Islington tips’ going to people like Dacre and Murdoch by ‘mistake’.
To say about these poor one-eyed jacks that ‘they’ll never get it’ is something as certain as REAL taxes and death…Hilarious, literally pissing myself hilarious.
Personally, I hope the Guardian dies on it’s arse asap, it’s given terminal brain cancer to far too many of my nearest and dearest lately and it’s time it suffered a similar fate, the smug bunch of Nu-Yuppie f**ks.
Oh, how the mighty have fallen.
are you still alive brian …. ??
good on you sir
at least when you were on the today programme with jack de manio we had no
illusions about the productnion slanting leftwards
nowadays with evan davies and naughtie but thrice we have to listen out for the tell tale signs to make sure we re still on the right waveband for radio pnom penh
So the grauniad is making huge losses and avoiding tax on them?
I don’t think I’ll ever understand rightie economics.
The Grauniad makes a thumping loss, while the Autotrader is profitable. The profits of the GMG, which also owns Autotrader, are shunted to an offshore tax haven, so that they can prop up a failing paper publishing stories about nasty companies using tax havens, while keeping the likes of Rusbridger, Polly-wolly-doodle and the Moonbat in sybaritic luxury.
That clear enough for you, Jimmy?
I would add some pictures to make it easier for him. Perhaps a cartoon dog explaining it using short words.
It’s too complicated for us to understand. Can you try again? Are the Kardashians involved?
never mind you plebs … what about us hoi polloi ???!!
Clear yes. True no. GMG is a UK company and can’t “shunt” its profits anywhere.
So all the Marxoid ramblings in the Grauniad about companies (ab)using tax havens are just made up then? Glad you could clear that up for us.
It might not be able to shunt it’s profits just anywhere. But it doesn’t make a profit, so what about it’s losses.?
Jimmy: I don’t think I’ll ever understand economics
There. Fixed it for you!
Economic creationists can never understand economics.
No petal, you just don’t understand full stop.
why should i pay for something i don’t want?
Because some idiots voted for them
It’s easy to avoid the TV tax.
pay for something you did not want quango ..??
are you referring to that pat of butter brought into that paris appartment by maria scheider which seemingky had no fridge ??
you obviously put it to good use though …..
“they are now demanding a bailout”
Demanding? Really? Having your own politician moment there, Guido?
“People willingly pay this money to a handful of telecommunications companies, but pay nothing for the news content they receive as a result”
Delusional twat. People pay nothing to Facebook or Twitter either, on which they likely spend vastly more time than the fucking Guardian site. How dare he suggest taxing the public, including a huge majority who never look at his wretched paper or site, just because his bosses can’t come up with a workable business plan. Despite tax dodging, a disproportionate amount of public sector advertising and the profits from Auto Trader.
Once the Guardianista has finally excreted itself into complete oblivion, hope its quickly followed by the Biased Broadcasting Company aka BBC who still believe they have the right, given to them from on high, to cause as much harrissment as they like to the general public who chose not to subscribe to their left wing blackmail tax & who do not own a television.
I would also like the taxpayer to subsidise my political posturing
We already do – at least your long distance mime act.
I’d sooner cancel my broadband than have two quid go to that diabolical publication.
My comment over there has got 74 recommends thus far!
“It’s a good thing for the graudian that, in line with their warped Marxist ideals, people do not have the option to view the highest rated comments on this obnoxious article.
This lame idea to save their skins has been, almost unaminously, met with rightful derision.
The day that this sanctimonious waste of wood pulp goes under, can not come soon enough.”
The Guardian must become taxpayer funded, even more so than it is now through gvt. job advertising. If you can read or if anyone in your house can read then you must have a license. This will put the Guardian on a par with the BBC, together they can formulate the news of the future.
Please god no, not ‘Tomorrow Belongs to Polly’.
What about “No where belongs to Polly”, she coundn’t even put the kettle on.
My other comment only got 3 recommends. Although i think it is far better.
“Surgery for urinary incontinence is very effective these days. Which has rendered out-moded ways of dealing with a weak bladder, obsolete.
I suggest a £2 tax on all BED-WETTERS, to help the ailing rubber-sheet industry.
http://www.nonjob.tumblr.com“
“A £2-a-month levy on every household in the country is a flat tax ” no, no it is not. 2% would be a flat tax.
Disagree. A flat tax applies the same tax rate to all taxpayers.
That can be fixed in terms of amount or progressive, as is 2%.
That the method applies without reference to the taxpayer’s situation is the defining feature here. Flat in terms of eligibility not flat in terms of method.
Why should it only be flat-dwellers that pay ? That would be like a fart in a lift.
The War of Independence wasn’t America against England. It was Englishmen resisting the oppressive regime of their autocratic German king – asserting their human rights, in modern parlance.
Just Englishmen ? So all those Scots, Welsh and Irish settlers are just airbrushed out of history then ?
Imagine what would have happened if I hadn’t been such a young man just getting his feet wet in 1763, and had had enough initiative to spark a Constitutional crisis by sacking Grenville (who was the real villain of the piece where America was concerned) just as soon as I could see what an idiot he was, instead of waiting two years for opposition to build. The Yanks wouldn’t have become so agitated to the point where nothing we could do would please them, resulting in that pack of lies about me known as the Declaration of Independence. But remember, I had agreed to the Civil List as the pr!ce of my accession, and Grenville would have cut me off without a farthing. That’s the sort of grief which caused me to go off my rocker, you know.
Absolutely wrong – the English in America were all in favour of George lll, they were against the British Govt taxing them.
“This would solve the financial problems of quality newspapers”
Great, but how do they propose to solve the Guardian’s financial problems?
exaclty, they are still going down.
is this the Farmers’ Guardian?
Isn’t this the Guardian recommending that its online readers be made to subsidise the Daily Mail?
“redistributed automatically to “news providers” according to their share of UK online readership”.
The Daily Mail has the largest online readership of any newspaper in the world. By rights they should get proportionally more. Not much left of that £500million when its divvied up proportionately. The Guardian will get very little indeed.
The trouble is, that if the Guardian folded, blogs like Guido’s would lose a punching-bag of the kind that keeps popping up for more, like children play with. I’m almost tempted to go along with the plan, just on that basis:
Lets hope it goes out of business asap
A £2-a-month levy on broadband could save our newspapers, says David Leigh,
proceeds could be distributed based on UK online readership and reinvested To protect great journalism
Having survived more than 40 years at the coalface of British journalism (longer than a term of service in the ancient Roman army)…
What a fucking Hero!, a great journalist, worked on a coal face for forty years and still found the time to build Hadrians wall in 122 AD.
To call the appalling silly lefty Grauniad a “quality paper” is stretching credulity to mars and back.
Is cleggers running the guniard now?
I thought silly season was last month.
Why are we surrounded by utter tossers,creaming vast amounts of money in all walks of life in this fucking rotten country?
Do left-wing media types have no shame!! Can’t honestly believe that he would publicly suggest this.
But then again it’s consistent with left-wing thinking. Taxing people to prop up left-wing interests.
No different to the BBC, Unionised public sector jobs, the welfare state etc. Expect to see this creep onto Labour’s manifesto at the next GE. After all, they spent billions on government advertising when they were in power (the Guardian sure has hell miss it!) to prop up their media friends interests and promote various hair-brained government schemes. Funding “friendly” newspapers through a tax is not beyond the realms of possibility.
The Liebore party would approve
Hairy brains? What a load of follicles!
The paying dead tree press claims another victim.
Time Out will be given out free from tomorrow at Zone 1 & 2 stations in London.
Still overpriced.
Surely the answer is for BT or another ISP to buy the newspapers. But with any luck the Guardian needs and deserves to die.
Buy BT sell Guardian Media Group
Milo Yiannopoulos is right that …social media are often blamed for a coarsening of discourse on the internet
He is wrong about the solution: If people cannot be trusted to treat one another with respect, dignity and consideration, perhaps they deserve to have their online freedoms curtailed.
Trolls do a good enough job of destroying themselves.
I am outraged at this proposed new tax, particularly after hearing Vince’s pitch for the leadership – sorry – speech today.
The BBC will think this is a great idea, but somehow they will have to exclude the evil Murdoch press and of course the Daily Fail.
The Guardian and lefties never cease to amaze me, have they ever though that the reason their paper is so fucking shit is because of the people it has working for it and it’s political stance?
I can’ t understand how Rubbisher has managed to keep his job,when he’s obviously totally useless.
Presumably, it would have to exclude papers that are owned by larger commercial interests, thereby ensuring that the loss making broadsheets will get put into some sort of “independent” trust type deal that was non-profit, if they were to receive funds. This of course, would remove commercial interest as driving incentive and ensure a much more Guardianesque narrative from previously, non-Guardianesque, newspapers. Or ensure that only the Guardian get’s the money. Either way you would end up with a left-wing tax funded press, making sure that the BBC know what to put into their news editorials.
State and tax funded advertising should be spread EVENLY between all mainstream newspapers.
The BBC spend 76% of their newspaper job adverts with the Guardian. A newspaper that only has 2.6% of the market.
ah! but a monopoly of the heart!
So the poor would be helping to subsidise Polly lard arses massive salary? Very socialist.
oh come one. You don’t know what’s good for you!
The Guardian doesn’t sell hard copies, advertising or online visits. It sells influence. How much would you pay to nobble a political or commercial rival? Post your cheque to the Guardian.
taking a break from the DT s eh ??
would that be as in delirium tremens ??
It is amazing, I keep returning to the article expecting a big April fool’s joke, with an Obnoxiuos clowns face in its place. But alas, no. What type of editor would allow such bullshit to be posted on their site?
It is staggering, but in fairness, at least they have not turned off the comments yet, and in fact they have doubled down with another post in support of it.
God bless progressives, (sorry, I mean the non gender specific sentiment being that does not exists bless) the Guardianistas.
The funny thing is, there are real comments that take it seriously. They ave to be trolling for readers to increase CPC. No?
Years ago David Leigh wrote a book about Howard Marks,the (in?)famous cannabis smuggler. I have to wonder whether he was on the old waccy baccy before he wrote that garbage himself..
The public gets what the public wants to pay, not what Guardianistas think they should be taxed for.
And two pounds every time you shop at Tesco to help the little shopkeepers . . .
and two pounds on every purchase at Amazon to help the independent booksellers . . .
and a small levy on digital cameras and memory cards might have saved the film processing business . . .
and think what a levy on early printed books would have done for the monasteries . . .
The Grauniad has finally disappeared up its own collective arsehole.
I hardly ever read Guardian online. Unacceptable.
I still buy newspapers,but never the Guardian and I don’t read it on line.
News should be FREE for everyone, The Guardian should not charge to let anyone know the latest news.
Should only the people who can afford to buy newspapers know the news.
Not a very socialist way of think. Tut Tut The Guardian you should be ashamed.
Oh’. I forgot the owner still wants to make money, maybe you are a liberal. Not really sure what you want.
Don’t mind the owner charging people who want to buy the rubbish; but not people who don’t.
Rocket science it is not.
It’s like the various scams known as copyright levies which we have, mercifully, avoided.
What a Hunt!
Do Guardian staff get phone and net expenses paid for by the paper?
Anyway, I’ll bet David Leigh and other senior staff do.
I alredy support enough of the lefty pricks through my taxed income so fuck off you are not getting anymore.
Having just read Steve Jobs’ biography, perhaps the Guardian should have taken a leaf out of Murdoch’s book and got into bed with Apple when Jobs persuaded Murdoch to put his papers behind pay-walls. Of course, the plan was for Jobs to get 30% of subscriptions for Apple. I wonder what happened to that….
I’ve put forward a workable solution to this before but you evil Tory far-right wingers never listen to your betters.
We need a letterbox tax. Anyone with a letterbox is capable of receiving the Guardian, so they should be made – under threat of prison – to pay a tax towards its production. The Guardian could then spend much of this money putting adverts in the Guardian, telling everyone how fucking wonderful the Guardian is and proclaiming how it is the best loved paper in the world.
Inspectors could turn up on peoples doorsteps, waving ID cards and demanding to know if they have a letterbox license. They could then try to get people to sign slips of paper which incriminate them. Many people – often single mothers – would probably end up in prison but it is a worthwhile price to pay for an outlet for Polly Toynbee.
Nobody is begging them to distribute their politically biased bollocks online.
I always thought that the leftie ‘intelligensia’ wore their badges of honour in the form of a carefully rumpled copy of the Guardian, casually slotted into their armpits.
Presumably DC’s cuts have rendered them unable to afford this simple luxury – excellent news!
ooh, you little devil you; the thought of them being constrained thus makes me go quite weak at the knees.
As if it were not already utterly untenable for me to have to fund the fucking BBC parasites with their bias, vile lefty agenda, and general Huntishness now the left want to force me to subsidise their truly appalling and unpopular house rag too.
THEY CAN FUCK RIGHT OFF!!!!
So a broadband connection is only used to read free news?
If they’re that desperate for money, then why do they put the newspaper online in the first place? In fact, why do ANY of them put themselves entirely online? Defeats the whole object of purchasing the physical newspaper.
As for the two quid levy, he can shove it up his ass, I never read the Guardian and I’m not forking out two quid on my ISP bill just for the potential of being able to read it. People do other things on the Internet apart from reading newspapers, such as reading alternative news websites where things are more likely to be truthful. One of the sad things is, though, that people have everything set up by direct debit and they never check their bank statements, so would they ever know they were being done?
I own a website too, can I get millions of pounds of tax payers’ money as well then? After all, people use their broadband connections to look at my site as well.
Sorry David but I already pay through the nose for one left leaning public service news agency, I have no desire to keep you in your London weighted comfort you dreadful pseudocommunist wanker
Funny, but the business that keeps the Grauniad afloat (Bangers’r'us, aka Autotrader) is also freely available online. The difference between the two is that AT prints stuff that’s useful.
I totally and utterly agree that all you plebs should keep your socialist betters in the style to which we are accustomed. In north Korea the job of “journalist” is to rewrite government press releases and that’s how it will be in the EU once we pass the new media regulation directive.
This directive will be necessary once we have the ratings agency directive in place in order to safeguard the Euro. As our socialist hero Lenin said “Freedom is precious. So precious that it must be rationed”.
Roll on the day the guardian closes .
Just pull the plug on the Guardian or perhaps Kieth Vaz could make a sizeable contribution out of his sleaze money.