Fine for Ross/Brand affair - the public pay the public

The BBC have been fined £150,000 by Ofcom over the Brand/Ross/Sachs affair.


Just think about that for a moment.


The BBC is funded by licence payers. So licence payers will stump up £150K to pay the fine.

So far, so good (although bad for the licence payers).

That money will not go to Ofcom. They can't accept money, apparently.


So that £150,000 will go to the Treasury, apparently.


So effectively, the money will go from the public to......er.....the public.

One gigantic great circular monetary merry go round, in other words.

And the point is?

Danged if I know.

If you think about it, the public who pay licence fees are not the same public who pay tax - although a Venn diagram of the two populations would show two virtually covering, mutually inclusive, circles.

But I suppose that there are probably a small number of people who pay the licence fee but don't pay tax. (Off the top of my head I can't think what kind of people these would be). They theoretically will be losing out, I suppose. Poor them.