Express & Star

Peter Rhodes on free TV licences, Scottish stereotypes and £30,000 a year for carers

Read today's column from Peter Rhodes

Published
Two Doors Down

A WARDEN has been appointed to remove litter around Loch Lomond. The idea, presumably, is to lure more tourists to the area. But who'd want to visit a country where people get drunk as quickly as possible, start fights at parties and use your garden as a loo? That's life in Scotland, as depicted in Two Doors Down (BBC2) which, week after week, undoes all the good work of VisitScotland.com.

GREG Dyke, a former director-general of the BBC, is in favour of scrapping the free TV licence for Britain's over-75s. He declares: "I think the idea that they're going to give the baby boomers, when they reach 75, a free licence is ridiculous." He's right. Some of today's pensioners are among the richest members of society. So why do they get a free TV licence? Probably because millions of Brits of whatever age can't help clinging to much-loved stereotypes. Although we have the evidence of our own eyes, the word "pensioner" still conjures Darby and Joan, the devoted couple who went through the Depression without two tanners to rub together and kept Old England going with songs round the piano and plenty of tea. The last of that generation are long gone but we can't quite shake off the image of the penniless pensioner. Truth is, there are plenty of people young and old who need help and, if you're on benefits you probably need a free TV licence. But to hand licences out like peppermints to those who happen to have been born before 1944 is a waste of money, which would horrify Darby and Joan.

PS. It goes without saying that none of the above should detract from the ultimate aim of scrapping the TV licence altogether. If the BBC were supported directly from taxation, the rich would pay more and the poor would pay nothing. Whatever their age.

"EVERY Day is Different" is the theme of the new campaign to recruit 100,000 people to careers in social care. The trouble is that when it comes to wages, every day is pretty much the same. Every day tends to be a hard-up day because carers earn about £8 an hour. It is a national scandal. The UK may not need two damn great aircraft carriers and we certainly don't need HS2. But as the population grows older we need to recruit and retain carers. On eight quid an hour?

TIME to get real. By all means run advertising campaigns stressing the status and job-satisfaction of a career in caring. But let the rewards match the challenge. A starting salary for qualified carers of, say, £30,000 a year would not only solve the staffing problem but show the world that Britain has got its priorities right.

IT would, of course, cost a lot of money. But it's still not too late to cancel HS2 and save £100 billion, is it?