News from the Centre for Citizenship

A panel of media experts commissioned by the Conservative Party has recommended that “the television licence fee be steadily reduced from 2007 onwards, and gradually replaced by a combination of subscription and indirect public funding.” The experts say that the tax “should be abolished completely when analogue television transmission is switched off.” The report also…

The Broadcasting Policy Group of media experts will recommend that the BBC should be funded by subscriptions instead of the licence fee, according to a report in the Financial Times. The groups says that that would be more equitable. The licence fee that provides most of the media giant’s massive funding has to be paid…

Recent opinion polls in Australia suggest that a substantial majority of Australians want Liz Windsor replaced as their head of state by an Australian. The polls also show a majority of Australians wanting the process to begin in 2004. A December 2003 poll by Newspoll and The Australian showed 51% of Australians wanting Australia to…

A scheme to prepare unemployed young people for work run by the so-called “Prince’s Trust”, has been found by the Adult Learning Inspectorate to be failing to provide useful workplace skills. The inspectors described the training as “inadequate” and “unsatisfactory.” The report says that over two years fewer than 25 per cent of the trainees…

Director of Public Prosecutions Ken Macdonald has held out the hope that the Crown Prosecution Service may become known as the Public Prosecution Service at the end of a major transformation of the way it operates. Mr. Macdonald told the Financial Times that “no decision has been made . . . But I see it…

Swedish newspapers have called for the abolition of that country’s monarchy after hereditary head of state Carl Gustaf praised Brunei, a monarchy ruled largely by royal decree, on its “openness”. The small south east Asia country is categorised as “not free” by the Freedom House organisation, which monitors oppressive states. Following the monarch’s statement the…

At a Fabian Society conference on Saturday House of Commons Leader Peter Hain suggested that legislators in Parliament’s second chamber be indirectly elected. Election would be by a “secondary mandate” system under which seats would be allocated according to the parties’ share of the vote in the general election to the House of Commons. Under…

In a new episode of the long-running farce, Charles Windsor donned fancy dress to visit British troops in Iraq at the weekend. Mr. Windsor wore battle dress showing the insignia of the Parachute Regiment. He is said to particularly enjoy dressing up in the tough regiment’s uniform although, according to the Financial Times, “his belief…

Culture & Sports Secretary Tessa Jowell has told the Financial Times that is “somewhere between unlikely and improbable” that the BBC will lose it right to extort money through its annual TV licence. Funding by means of a licence rather than other taxes costs TV owners £146m each year in enforcement costs, infringes civil liberties…

Gavyn Davies and Greg Dyke, the two multi-millionaires who ran the BBC while pursuing unemployed single parents through the courts for not paying the company for permission to watch other TV channels, have resigned. Their resignations followed the Hutton inquiry’s condemnation of the media giant’s shoddy journalism that had allowed it to broadcast and then…