26 Wednesday January 19 2022 | the times
Letters to the Editor
Letters to the Editor should be sent to
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1 London Bridge Street, London SE1 9GFtransmission I was the one and only
producer and I had to direct cameras
for the programme as well — and the
show itself was “live”. It is not only the
number of bosses that has multiplied.
Roger Ordish
Richmond, N YorksSir, The BBC is a public service
broadcaster but that does not mean it
must hold on to an outdated business
model. An example of this is BBC
iPlayer, which is user-friendly and
innovative, being available on mobile
phones, tablets, personal computers
and smart TVs. Yet that is where it
stops: the service is UK-based and no
effort has been made to turn it into a
global subscription service — it is
simply not available overseas. By
comparison Netflix and Prime are
available wherever you are.
Mark Jarvis
London SW3Sir, At a fraction over £3 per week we
enjoy unparalleled value from the
BBC, and it has been a constant
companion throughout these difficult
times. It is extremely informative and
highly entertaining, and its various
channels provide something for every
taste. No other country has aBeware the skidiots
Sir, Further to Sean Newsom’s article
“Skiing is dangerous but I’m still
taking my kids” (Times2, Jan 18), I last
went skiing in January 2020 and our
group commented on “skidiots”,
usually young men skiing alone and
very fast on blue runs. They post their
timings on their phone apps and try
to beat records; they love easy runs as
they are generally not good skiers. It
is time the authorities enforced speed
limits on blue runs and cracked down
on dangerous skiers, or I fear we will
have more deaths like the one in
Flaine (“French skier charged with
manslaughter of girl aged 5”, Jan 18).
Joan Johnston
Finchampstead, Berksbroadcasting service that compares to
it, even remotely. Its soft power is
invaluable. The licence itself is not
compulsory: we have a choice as to
whether we have a TV or not, but if
the licence fee really is beyond the
means of some, then it should be paid
through general taxation.
Linda Davies
North Wootton, SomersetSir, The Tories want to remove
licence fee funding for the BBC
because they consider its reports to be
biased against the government. What
they have forgotten is how, when the
Labour Party was in government, its
MPs complained of exactly the same
anti-government bias.
May Woods
London SW6Sir, Nadine Dorries should give up on
scrapping the licence fee: we don’t
want the BBC to be forced to make
banal, ridiculous programmes such as
I’m a Celebrity... Get Me Out of Here!,
with minor “stars” one has rarely
heard of, in order to survive. Is
Dorries really the “culture” secretary
or am I in the middle of a nightmare?
Edward Lyon
Sandown, Isle of WightSir, It was with an awful sense of déjà
vu that I read of yet another attempt
to reorganise the National Health
Service (“Academy-style hospitals
planned for NHS in England”, Jan 18).
Having lived through many such
schemes — none of which benefited
patients or encouraged sensible use of
limited funding — since entering the
NHS in 1969, I fear that Sajid Javid
has failed to recall the words
attributed (possibly incorrectly) to the
Roman Petronius Arbiter, a courtier
of Nero’s time: “We trained hard but it
seemed that every time we were
beginning to form into teams, we
would be reorganised. I was to learn
later in life that we tend to meet any
new situation by reorganising; and
what a wonderful method it can be
for creating the illusion of progress
while producing confusion,
inefficiency and demoralisation.”
Jeremy Auchincloss FRCS
Ret’d surgeon, Elgin, MorayMollycoddling
Sir, Sathnam Sanghera’s reference to
an 85-year-old woman flinging her
left arm across the passenger seat
(Notebook, Jan 17; letter, Jan 18) is a
throwback to the days before seat
belts, when a child with dangling feet
clear of the floor would head for the
windscreen at any sharp braking. My
mother took the same action for her
handbag on the seat beside her.
Deborah Bardsley
Great Shelford, CambsSir, I can completely relate to
Sathnam Sanghera’s comments. For
as long as I can remember, every
weekend when I visit my parents my
mother asks the same question as she
opens the door: “Are you planning on
shaving any time soon?” I am 44.
Simon Ansell
London NW7Verge vigilantes
Sir, While driving in the US we too
noticed sections of road kept free of
litter by sponsors (letters, Jan 17 & 18).
One such notice declared it to be kept
clear by “Bad Boys Bail Bonds”.
Kate Warburton
Scarborough, N Yorks
Corrections and
clarifications
6 We reported that the alleged
Chinese agent Christine Lee made a
generous donation to the
Conservative Party at a 2018
fundraising event organised by Alex
Yip, a Conservative councillor and
former director of the British Chinese
Project (News, Jan 15). Alex Yip states
that no such donation was made and
that Lee has not donated to the party
since she was identified as having
close links with the Chinese Embassy.
We are happy to put this on record.
We are
committed to
abiding by the
Independent
Press Standards Organisation rules and
regulations and the Editors’ Code of
Practice that IPSO enforces. Requests
for corrections or clarifications should
be sent to [email protected]
Ukraine crisis
Sir, Having read your leading article
(“Phoney War”, Jan 17) and Ben
Wallace’s interesting comment article
on President Putin (“Judge Putin’s
intent by the poison flowing from his
pen”, Jan 17), I am inevitably
reminded of Churchill’s 1936 speech
in the Commons after Hitler’s
annexation of Czechoslovakia:
“Anyone can see what the position is.
The government simply cannot make
up their mind, or they cannot get the
prime minister to make up his mind.
So they go on in strange paradox,
decided only to be undecided,
resolved to be irresolute, adamant for
drift, solid for fluidity, all powerful to
be impotent.” The question in many
of our minds is this: is Ukraine to be
our 21st-century Poland?
Lord Steel of Aikwood
Selkirk, Scottish Borders
Sir, Roger Boyes offers a cogent
argument why a declaration by
Ukraine of neutrality is not a solution
(“Neutrality won’t protect Ukraine
from Putin”, Jan 12). There is another
reason: Putin himself. In his treatise
The Historical Unity of Russians and
Ukrainians he shows himself to be a
romantic Rus nationalist. He fails to
see that the Ukrainian government’s
alignment with the West is not an
anti-Russian stance but an anti-
Putinism position. We need to look at
what Putin has said to divine his
intentions. The only way to the unity
he craves, short of the end of his
regime, is invasion. It further suggests
that all talk of western encirclement
of Russia is a false narrative designed
to erect an argument of self-defence
when he invades.
Mark Eades
Mavesyn Ridware, Staffs
Sir, Stalin’s empire has been the
model that Putin has attempted to
follow. Should he invade and secure
Ukraine we should not expect him to
stop: he will begin to threaten all the
nations on the border of the Russian
Federation and begin the process of
securing a new Iron Curtain. Nato
would be wise to expect the worst
from Putin and begin to build a force
that will contain his ambitions.
Ed Houlihan
Ridgewood, New Jersey
BBC and a future without the licence fee
Sir, I was puzzled by Melanie Phillips’s
claim that public perceptions of the
BBC’s “distorted groupthink” are
widespread (“The BBC and NHS
sacred cows need to change”, Jan 18).
Her example of this was that no
Brexiteer was included for balance in
one edition of the Toda y programme
during the Brexit controversy. I did
not listen to that particular edition
but have always listened to Toda y and
the BBC news, and remember being
extremely concerned that the sheer
number of Brexit supporters on Toda y
were not balanced by supporters of
Remain. The appearances of Ian
Duncan Smith, Digby Jones, Owen
Paterson, John Redwood, Mark
Francois, Andrew Bridgen and Nigel
Farage on Toda y and the BBC
generally seemed never-ending.
Gillian Boyle
Rugby, WarksSir, If the BBC finds a way to survive it
could be in its interest to make
judicious staff cuts. In 1968 I produced
a talk show, Dee Time with Simon
Dee, for BBC1. The nearest equivalent
to it now might be The Graham Norton
Show. Graham Norton’s screen credits
reveal that there are seven people with
the title “producer”. For my 1968Academy hospitals
from the times january 19, 1922OVERWORK
IN
SCHOOLS
Stiffer sentences
Sir, As a magistrate who was
appointed at the age of 25, my
experience of how my colleagues and
I discharge our sentencing powers is
very different from the concerns
raised by Andrea Coomber of the
Howard League for Penal Reform
(“Magistrates get power to jail
offenders for a year”, Jan 18). Rather
than rushing to find a reason to send
someone to prison, we use our
training, instinct and practice to
examine all other options first. We are
ordinary citizens, drawn from all
walks of life, highly trained and with a
duty to ensure that justice is done.
The pandemic has caused a huge
backlog in the court system and
moves such as increasing our
sentencing powers will allow us to do
even more to assist in the national
recovery from Covid-19.
Thomas Reynolds JP
London SW10thetimes.co.uk/archivePreserving the PM
Sir, William Hague sets out a series of
measures the government needs to
take to restore trust and many will
agree that they are not only sensible
but necessary (“Johnson needs to
work fast to save himself”, Jan 18).
However, he avoids the obvious truth
that none of these measures will work
while Boris Johnson remains in
charge. The Conservative Party knew
that it was electing a liar and an
adulterer as its leader. Perhaps it
thought that once ensconced in
Downing Street the leopard would
change his spots, but he didn’t and is
hardly likely to do so now. To instil
the culture of disciplined teamwork
that Hague calls for requires a leader
with a record of respect and
discipline. Tory MPs would do well to
find one without delay.
Geyve Walker
Tirril, CumbriaSir, The absurdity of William Hague’s
contention that “booting out the
prime architect of Brexit” would
“bring mockery around Europe” is
perfectly illustrated by the extracts
from leading articles in continentalnewspapers that you publish, which
show the contempt in which Boris
Johnson is widely held.
David Woodhead
Leatherhead, SurreyToute la France
Sir, I am not surprised to read that
heads have decried the new
vocabulary-focused GCSE (report,
Jan 15; letters, Jan 17 & 18). No one
wants to sit about learning lists of
words. If the government wishes to
promote an “evidence-based”
alternative to the present failed
approach it should look to the recent
increase in the interest in Latin and
Greek since their relaunch as
Classical Studies. Teenagers are not
too young to engage with the
feminism of de Beauvoir, the comedy
of Molière, even the culinary
revolution of Escoffier. They may not
converse as fluently with their copains
and copines as their counterparts
among Robin Walker’s vocab rote-
learners, but I guarantee that there
will be many more of them.
Charlie Bagnall
MA (modern languages), CheltenhamSir, I agree with Barrie Hunt (letter,
Jan 17) that when it comes to foreign
vocabularies, enough is never enough.
Armed with a fresh distinction in my
Higher School Certificate in French in
my pocket, I navigated through the
intricacies of the harbour and eased
my way on to the open road, only to
be brought up short by a series of signs
warning “Danger: Virages”. What do
virages do, leap out at you? Do they
bite? For next 10km we drove fearfully
and carefully down a winding road.
Ian Ferguson
Upper Beeding, W SussexLetters to The Times must be exclusive
and may be edited. Please include a full
address and daytime telephone number.Paris. Every parent is deeply
concerned in the problem of how to
give his child a good education
without impairing his physical
health and development. It is
generally accepted that the German
schoolboy works hardest, the French
boy less, and the English boy least.
Speaking with knowledge of French
school conditions over many years, I
may say that it is a frequent
complaint with French parents that
their boys and girls are worked at
the expense of their health and that
not sufficient time is allowed them
for recreation and games. It is not somuch the actual length of school
hours they complain of as the
amount of home lessons. If the latter
are conscientiously prepared
recreation hours and the Thursday
holiday shrink to vanishing point.
Parliament is to discuss reform of
the secondary education programme
and the Academy of Medicine has
published a report on the subject. It
recommends (1) An eight-hour day
(school and preparation) for the first
four classes, and nine-hours for the
higher classes. (2) Opportunity
should be afforded for games and
manual labour. (3) The number in a
class should not exceed 30. (4)
Children incapable of keeping pace
with the teaching are a drag on the
class and should be systematically
eliminated (no suggestion is made as
to what should be done with them).
(5) The faculties of observation and
judgement should be more highly
developed without neglecting the
cultivation of the memory. (6) Thecurriculum should be curtailed.
Detail only interesting to specialists
should be excluded, while preserving
(a) general notions which play a part
in directing human thought, (b)
notions whose practical character
renders them indispensable to every
educated man, (c) notions whose
educational value is well established.
(7) The role of the doctor should be
enlarged, and he should be consulted
on all questions of hygiene.
Meanwhile the Minister of Public
Instruction is experimenting with an
“English week” in two schools at
Lyons — that is to say, Wednesday
and Saturday half-holidays in lieu of
a whole day on Thursday. The
workers of Lyons, through their
unions, declare themselves against
the innovation. They say that a
whole day’s rest in the middle of the
week is a necessity for children.