More on Auntie

Johann Hari has once again got my attention by agreeing with my post about the BBC a few days ago (all things to all men)

I'm no Hari fan (although I'm seem to be agreeing with him too often lately) but he gave a good answer to some of my worries, but one main question remains in my head - I tried to ask this in the comments but the site was down, so I'll post it here, probably better here anyway:

What I would ask is what should we do about people who do not want to pay for it? They want to watch ITV, or Sky - but quite rightly feel aggrieved when their simple ownership of a tv forces them to fund something they don't want, and indeed the licence is regressive - a flat fee that obviously costs more to the poorer sections of society

My question is - it a fair system? Should we take the view that this is a part of taxation and the opponents should just accept the majority view and be funding something in the public interest, even if they don't use it

My main struggle is with the 'ownership of a tv' bit - it makes no sense, you want to watch another channel and you have to pay, you don't want to watch tv at all and you don't - seems outdated to me and doesn't fit into a public interest argument

Even though I may not always agree with Hari's politics I can least understand his reasoning, he has very different ideas about the world to me - I cannot say the same about the other top leftie commentator at the Indie, Steve Richards - who is an insufferable bore and is just a Labour cheerleader