Looking down the legislative agenda there are three Bills coming up for a second reading in this parliamentary session which will warm the hearts of co-conspirators:
These are, at the moment, Private Members Bills – from Peter Bone and Christopher Chope – so not likely to become law unless the government takes them up. Guido reckons the decriminalisation of non-payment of the BBC licence fee is actually likely to happen. This will put the BBC on the same footing as any other creditor in the courts. Some form of beefed-up oversight could happen, if the BBC has any sense they will try and get ahead of the game and stop their own BBC journalists tweeting opinions about politics and giving their partisan lack of impartiality public amplification on social media. They could of course actually enforce the guidance that already exists and perhaps not renew the contracts of the persistent rule breakers pour encourager les autres. All these impartiality concerns would of course largely disappear if the second Bill were passed, the BBC was privatised, and we were no longer forced to pay for it…
