A depleted BBC will turn us into Little Britain
So the government is beginning a review of BBC funding in the era of Netflix. Surely this forgets one simple truth: no streaming service offers news and current affairs. In fact, commercial broadcast news seems not to make a profit but to be funded by other parts of the channel(s). Amazon is the only one to experiment with sports coverage so far. What happens to the crown jewel sports competitions, Remembrance Sunday, the state opening of parliament?
The licence fee has already been raided by the government over the years to pay for a digital switchover and local city TV, amongst other things.
Furthermore, with the BBC’s world-class reputation, any major damage to it will show the world that post-Brexit, we really have become Little Britain.
Alan Hutchinson
Address not supplied
Farage vs the People
I disagree with Mary Dejevsky's assertion in her article about Nigel Farage that parliament and the people are now in alignment in their views about Brexit. The vast majority of opinion polls since the referendum have shown a clear majority in favour of the UK's membership of the EU. This majority is growing and is likely to continue to grow as the malign effects of Brexit become clear. Since the referendum, large numbers of old Leave voters have been replaced by young supporters of Remain, who will be responsible for clearing up the mess left by their forbears, even though the young ones have had no say in the matter. It could be argued that the parliamentary shenanigans of the past three years have been a fair reflection of the division of opinion in the country, with a majority of MPs showing a commendable scepticism about the prospectus put before them by the Brexit snake-oil salesmen. Since then, however, a Brexit-supporting majority among MPs has been established on a minority of the popular vote and an even smaller minority of the total electorate, while a majority of electors in December backed parties who called for a confirmatory referendum. So it seems clear to me that parliament is now seriously out of step with the people. Ultimately the people will prevail, as they have always done. Our rulers would do well to heed the lesson of history that peoples and nations are always stronger together.
Sam Boote
Keyworth, Nottinghamshire
Culpable Clarke
I’m disappointed that Boris Johnson is nominating Kenneth Clarke for a peerage. Mr Clarke was Health Minister when cheap contaminated blood was imported for the NHS from the USA. This was taken from high-risk paid donors – drug addicts, sex workers and prisoners and was was infected with HIV and hepatitis C and given to British patients. Mr Clarke wrongly told Parliament in 1983: “There’s no conclusive evidence that AIDS is transmitted by blood.” However, when giving evidence to the Scottish Penrose Inquiry, Dr Mark Winter, a blood expert, said: “All haemophilia clinicians by this stage clearly believed that commercial blood products could and were transmitting AIDS.” The importing of infected blood continued and killed thousands, including children. Mr Clarke is a smooth talker, but we must look deeper.
Anonymous
Heathrow hypocrisy
I read with interest your article about Labour leadership hopeful Rebecca Long-Bailey and her opposition to Heathrow expansion, apparently on environmental grounds. She should recall that the majority of her Labour colleagues voted for the expansion in June 2018 in Parliament. Her comment that Jeremy Corbyn should have “whipped” MPs harder to oppose the scheme is very curious when you look at her own voting record. Like Boris Johnson, she didn’t vote against expansion.
Her newly0defined position may have more to do with her current struggles in the Labour leadership campaign. Whipping up fears over a project that is supported by her parliamentary colleagues, the TUC, the CBI just looks like posturing for a vocal, but narrow, political base.
In addition, more residents support than oppose expansion in 16 of the 18 constituencies neighbouring Heathrow.
Responsible leaders do not play politics with 180,000 new jobs and economic growth, which will be delivered by a carbon-neutral airport that will play its part in meeting our country’s carbon reduction targets.
Parmjit Dhanda
Executive Director, Back Heathrow campaign
Reading Ashley Cowburn’s column on the Cabinet reshuffle, I will be very interested to see who will form the top table of our government. I personally will lose little sleep if Jacob Rees-Mogg is demoted after his dire Grenfell comments. Instead I hope this entity will be fashioned liberally – not stuffed full of Yes, Prime Minister toadies – and will speak up when required. These are complex and divisive times and for the Cabinet not to reflect this, warts and all, is completely disingenuous. The public needs to know the plain unvarnished truth, not congratulatory and meretricious soundbites, manufactured to stop us from becoming restless. So I ask Boris Johnson: stop this bunker modus operandi and form a Cabinet that is free-speaking and inclusive.
Judith Daniels
Great Yarmouth, Norfolk
The emperor’s new clothes
As the — contrived, in my opinion — rumpus over the attire of Tracy Brabin MP appears not to have subsided, I thought it wise to state a common-sense angle on such matters.
Surely it is far more desirable to have our representatives showing ability and honesty with a lack of sartorial elegance (not the case here), than impeccable attire only to be incompetent and duplicitous.
Having said that even I would draw the line at Togas and Cod-pieces!
Robert Boston
Kingshill, Kent
Read more
Inside Politics: PM mulls reshuffle and shrugs off story about his dad
What to expect from Boris Johnson’s cabinet reshuffle
Dominic Cummings is ripping out the beating heart of British culture
