Nanny State UK

Petty nanny statism is rife in the UK, everywhere officials are trying to regulate behaviour. Recent cases include the fine because a cop overheard one person swearing to a friend, which is illegal, or the man prosecuted for putting junk mail he received as he walked out of his home into a bin. Now there is Ofcom, the communications regulator complaining that Channel 4 – a privately owned commercial TV channel, broadcasts “too many commercials”. Now if Channel 4 broadcast too many for the viewers, viewers would change channels. Nobody is forced to pay for Channel 4, or to watch it – but Nanny Ofcom has to ensure that the British public are protected from… Channel 4 being too successful. Channel 4 depends on commercials to pay for its programmes, but that isn’t good enough for Ofcom. The Great British Battering Machine is in place – be mediocre, don’t be too successful, nobody likes it (unless it is football).

Don Foster, a Liberal Democrat demagogue said people expressed concern about More 4, a commercial digital TV channel owned by Channel 4. Well frankly those people should get a life – take their nosy little beaks out of what isn’t their business. Free to air commercial TV is something you get for nothing, a range of entertainment, news, information that through capitalism brings happiness to millions – if it didn’t it would fail. People are forced to pay £126 a year to pay for the BBC, what commercial TV does should be nothing to do with the state. Particularly now where there are 36 digital free to air channels broadcast.