We keep chucking money at Manx Radio and the BBC!

I’m looking at the TV broadcast licence which is due for renewal at the end of next month and thinkings this can't go on!

At the moment we pay the UK licence tax (that's what it is) and also pay about a million a year to Manx Radio. The Station meanwhile makes no secret of the fact it wants ‘a shed load of money’ to have another revamp!

I’m all in favour of having a MANX public service broadcaster and if the money was coming IN FULL from a returned percentage of the broadcast licence I would say ‘carry on’.

However we are cutting back on health and social care services to save money and closing wards in hospitals and you think enough is enough. The view is compounded when you see the sense of entitlement that the Radio station exhibits as epitomised by recent interviews (see earlier posts).

If we are ‘strapped for cash’ to the extent that we have cut back on prescription entitlements (still in place in the UK) for those with special dietary needs. If we are closing wards etc (I don’t mean the PPU I mean Ward 5) and if we are having a brouhaha about what we pay health staff then I’m afraid it's time for some belt tightening. Areas that think they were ‘sacred cows’ like that edifice on Douglas Head need to be sent to the abattoir.

When it comes to health care facilities or a glorified social club on Douglas Head I know where my vote falls! Maybe Manx Radio could ask the Chamber of Commerce to bail them out after all that’s what friends are for!

Bernard Moffatt