Badges For Sale
In March 2006 the news that Blue Peter badges were available for sale on auction websites such as eBay attracted a great deal of media interest, with the suspicion that the right to free entry was being abused. In a leader article The Times described the news as "a knife to the national psyche", while The Sun launched a campaign in which readers could "send in the names of people they know who have an illegal Blue Peter badge".
After news of the sales reached a wide audience, the number of badges for sale on eBay exploded from a few dozen to 300. eBay said that it would remove any auctions proven to involve fake badges on the grounds of copyright infringement, but that trade in real badges was not illegal and would not be halted by eBay administrators.
On 29 March 2006 the decision was made to withdraw the privileges the badges offered until measures could be put in place to stop the badges being sold for commercial gain, with the show appealing to the public for ideas. Accompanying the statement of suspensions the show's editor Richard Marson said Blue Peter wished to "protect children who have earned their badges and who are feeling very let down by this cynical trade."
Blue Peter badges were re-introduced on 19 June 2006, under a new system in which all current holders of a Blue Peter badge and those who win a badge will also need to be issued with a photo ID card. The idea was thought up by 11-year old Blue Peter viewer and Blue badge winner Helen Jennings, who even included a prototype design of the ID card in the letter that she sent to the show. The producers awarded Helen with a Silver badge for proposing the system. ID cards for previous badge winners aged 6 to 15 can be obtained by entering details into a form on the Blue Peter website.
Read more about this topic: Blue Peter Badge
Famous quotes containing the words badges and/or sale:
“Whether our feet are compressed in iron shoes, our faces hidden with veils and masks; whether yoked with cows to draw the plow through its furrows, or classed with idiots, lunatics and criminals in the laws and constitutions of the State, the principle is the same; for the humiliations of the spirit are as real as the visible badges of servitude.”
—Elizabeth Cady Stanton (1815–1902)
“[T]he dignity of parliament it seems can brook no opposition to it’s power. Strange that a set of men who have made sale of their virtue to the minister should yet talk of retaining dignity!”
—Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826)