Mr Edmonds' current employer, however, is Rupert Murdoch. Need I say more.

Far be it from me to support Mr Edmonds, but I can say from personal experience that there is (or was) something sinister about the way the TV Licensing people go about their business.   I must be one of the few people who have actually got something out of them in respect of their quite outrageous behaviour.  For some reason (presumably the inflexibility of their database), they concluded I didn't have a licence and 'traced' me to an address that wasn't mine (it was, in fact, the retail premises below the flat I lived in at that time) and sent a mildly threatening 'reminder' to me at that address.  The people at the shop made a few enquiries and the letter ended up in my hands.  I was furious that they had not only quite clearly done a bit of research to discover that there was no licence under the shop's address (surprise, surprise) but had associated me with those premises without doing a simple search of their own database on my name and the postcode - which would have told them instantly that I had a licence at the same address but with a 'B' after the house number.  I phoned up and complained and they offered me their apologies - which I was disinclined to accept as full settlement.  After some wrangling - involving my threatening to tell any media people who would listen - I extracted a cheque from them in respect of my hurt feelings, wasted time and telephone costs.  I can't remember how much it was for - less than £10 but it's the principle that counts.  I regret not having photocopied it before I put it in the bank.

TV Licensing are also involved in the general attempt to force everyone to pay their bills by direct debit.  When they stopped allowing us to pay at the post office I first registered my disapproval and then scanned the remaining payment methods to get their details for bank transfer.  To my amazement these were not shown on the reminder.  I phoned up to ask how I went about paying them by this method and was told it wasn't accepted; so I insisted on speaking to a senior person and getting an explanation.  I finally got put through to a very sympathetic person who told me it was accepted but wasn't on the reminders because it wasn't very popular.  She then went away to get the details and (probably against office guidelines) told me "Oooh, it's got 'we do not promote this method' in bold type on here".  They still don't promote it if my latest bill is anything to go by.

Will any of the above lead to my making common cause with Noel Edmonds?  Er...no.  Certainly none of it will cause me to evade my licence fee, which I've always paid promptly.

Indeed, HtoHe, the missives one receives from TV licensing are indeed unnecessarily aggressive and threatening - like slips that say in large type "WE SAID WE'D CALL, AND WE'LL BE BACK". What is this, The Terminator?

However, Edmonds is patently spouting Murdoch's anti-BBC propaganda and I would rather receive silly letters from TV licensing than see the BBC become a commercial station because some billionaire lizard wants to expand his empire.