Brave pensioner says she would rather go to JAIL than pay TV Licence

Ivy Siegfried appeared on ITV’s This Morning show after the BBC decided to scrap the free licence for pensioners, which will come into effect on August 1 – after it was delayed due to the coronavirus pandemic.

It’s a move that has caused fury and angerand 82-year-old Ivy Siegfried is so incensed by it that she said she’d do time rather than cough up. Thos on Pension Credit will still be eligible for a free TV Licence but many who aren’t will be forced into poverty as a result of this.

She appeared on This Morning from her home in Inverclyde and told hosts Dermot O’Leary and Rochelle Humes:

“It’s disgusting! They’re doing it again to pensioners.

I’m not a TV person and certainly not a BBC person. When I think of all the elderly people and what they’ve gone through and now the BBC are screwing them for £157 a year for c**p…yeah I’m angry!

I can pay it but I know people who on and below the breadline who can’t.

I know people who use television as a friend, they turn it on in the morning, they watch, they listen; it’s like having someone in their home.

Why should we have to pay to watch someone talk about sports who are on £2million a year?!

I have a lot of sympathy; in an ideal world no-one should be paying.

It should be means tested but the argument that it should be free has collapsed over time. Research shows that pensioner households are £20 better off a week than many working age households.

 

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