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.