It’s not just the BBC’s well-paid stars who didn’t like hearing that the licence fee will be abolished. Labour MPs have been spitting feathers at Nadine Dorries’s audacious move to phase out the existing system by 2028, with many standing up in the House of Commons today to proclaim their dismay. Lucy Powell, Dorries’ opposite number, wailed that the government’s ‘cultural vandalism’ risked ‘destroying everything that is great about Britain.’ As the creator of the Ed Stone, she’d know all about that. Powell doubled down on Twitter, claiming the abolition of the licence fee was ‘the end of of the BBC as we know it’.
Strong stuff and Powell’s colleagues were quick to retweet in solidarity and express their admiration for the BBC. But might it be worth the Shadow Culture Secretary taking a look at how many of her colleagues actually pay out of their own pocket for the Corporation’s services? For a Freedom of Information request to IPSA by Mr S has found that some 33 sitting MPs bill the taxpayer for a TV licence in their offices – including no less than six Labour frontbenchers now leading the charge to keep the current system in place.
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