Jolly good idea but I doubt if they would do it though

How can the HMRC justify spending revenue on advertising when the chancellor is pleading poverty, and in any event I am sure that we all know about the HMRC and what they are about I am sure that you will all agree, it is the one service that doesn't need advetising.

SilentCallsVictim wrote on Mar 28^th, 2010 at 1:15pm:


Is that why Ofcom still took full page national newspaper advertising in several of the national newspapers two or three years ago to claim what a great new competitive world for telecoms we would now be entering with Ofcom now having fully de-regulated the cost of BT line rental and nearly all phone calls.

But since then the minimum call charge has risen around 200% for anyone without a call package and the minimum cost of line rental for ordinary citizens on normal incomes has gone up about 65%

This will be the same splendid de-regulated but suppsedly competitive world in which BT is allowed to put big signs on its phone boxes claiming calls cost 1p per minute while totally hiding that 0845 calls, which are cheaper than 01/02/03 calls on a landline (for those who do not have call packages), cost a staggering 20p per minute from a BT Payphone.

Ofcom have plenty of money, which is why their top civil servants are paid so much, they just choose not to spend it on anything that would allow the public to be better educated about the cost of making phone calls.

SilentCallsVictim wrote on Apr 7^th, 2010 at 10:55am:


Yet Ofcom seem to have no trouble being very strict indeed with late night 09 adult sex chat channels in the Sky EPG that give their viewers what they were actually hoping to see.  Or indeed encrypted pay adult movie channels that give their viewers what they were hoping to see rather than just soft core porn.  Of course you will no doubt tell me that Ofcom is bound by different and much stricter legislation here but the only people they are usually serving are either prurient representatives of the more fundamentalist churches with nothing better to do or alternatively their competitor porn channels who feel that they are showing something that they cannot do due to stricter internal compliance in adhering with the legislation.  All seems a bit pointless when you can see almost anything without significant censorship (so long as it it only involves adults of 18 or over and nobody is suffering serious physical harm) on the internet.

NGMsGhost wrote on Apr 7^th, 2010 at 11:54am:

As you rightly quote, Ofcom's two principal duties under the law are to further the interests of "citizens" and "consumers". It is however not funded by them (directly) but by those whom it regulates. It therefore actually seeks to protect is the good name and standing of the respective industries and the effectiveness of a market delivering benefits to consumers. (The "citizen" bit gets horribly confused.)

Ofcom has threatened to show some spine recently in challenging both BSkyB and the mobile operators. We hope for radical proposals to come forward shortly in respect of charges for calling NTS and PRS numbers. Let us hope that perhaps something good will emerge from one or more of these efforts.

If this forum exists essentially to present a limited range of opinions and to stand squarely on one side of particular arguments, it cannot be expected to attract contributions from those who share none of its aims. Ofcomwatch does publish responses from Ofcom through interviews, however there is no ongoing dialogue.