Letters: BBC and the obligation to educate

The debate on the worldwide commercial activities of the BBC (The Big Question, 3 September) raises the question of whether the Corporation is fulfilling its licence obligations to its core market at home. In my opinion, shared with many I have spoken to, it is not.

The remit of the BBC is to entertain, educate and inform. BBC radio observes this balance. By contrast, BBC television provides news, sport (except for cricket) and popular entertainment in all its variety and creativity, but its output of factual programmes is weak. Factual programmes are few in number, little effort seems to go into devising and creating them, and they are often biased towards their value as popular entertainment, or so light that they contain no new information. Channel 4 and even Channel 5 provide as many informative programmes as does the BBC.

In this way, the Corporation is ignoring that part of the licence-paying public which is interested in new discoveries and developments in history, archaeology, science, art etc, or in analysis and information on current issues.

We all pay the same licence fee and are all entitled to the same return on our contribution. The risk that the Corporation runs, if this bias is not corrected, is that calls will increase for the licence fee income to be diverted to other channels, which are prepared to supply a more balanced range of programmes.

Anthony C Pick

Newbury, Berkshire

Your article "Why is there such concern over the BBC's commercial activities?" (3 September) is timely. The BBC has become an international multimedia organisation on the back of the licence-fee payer. One can admire its initiative, but a redefinition of public-service broadcasting and its responsibilities is long overdue. A Royal Commission is probably the best option.

Ken Groves

Aldeburgh, Suffolk

Still we pay for shunning the euro

After fudging for years over his "five economic tests" on whether Britain should join the euro, Gordon Brown's dithering and his Chancellor's gloomy economic vision have seen the pound plummet against the euro. Get set for stormy times.

The devaluation is already plunging holidaymakers into deeper debt and hitting retirement payments to British pensioners living in Europe. As Britain's North Sea oil boom comes to an end, we will be reliant on ever more expensive oil and gas imports. By 2013, a study for the Department of Business Enterprise, UK Continental Shelf Oil and Gas Production and the UK Economy, predicts the UK may well run up a cumulative deficit in oil and gas imports in excess of $500bn.

With oil-exporting nations increasingly demanding payments in a stable euro currency rather than the chronically weak dollar, our energy bills will rise even further. We could soon be back to the speculation of the 1990s and may bitterly regret not joining the strong and stable euro Brown disdains.

The media has lost interest in challenging Brown on joining the eurozone. We need to do so before it is too late.

Brian McGavin

Wilmslow, Cheshire

Ten years ago the Tory party raised the cry, "Save the pound." They thought that Tony Blair wanted to take Britain into the Eurozone. They did not want Britain's economy run by those crazy Europeans. Brussels was full of red tape and controls, while we would be far better off with the free market, and anyway the euro would collapse.

Tony Blair failed to swap the pound for the euro, and we went headlong into the free market. Controls went out of the widow. Now we are in the worst economic state for 60 years and the pound has reached a record low rate against the euro. The pound was "saved" and is now a basket case. Replacing Brown with Cameron is not the answer to our economic mess.

J W Wright

Calne, Wiltshire

Carte blanche for defamation

The UN Human Rights Committee thinks UK libel laws unduly restrict free speech and should incorporate an American-style "public figure" defence (report, 21 August). So, what would this mean?

In the USA, if you are identified by the court as a "public figure", not necessarily someone rich or powerful, but just anyone who has ever attracted some public attention, you are deemed fair game for defamatory "free speech", regardless of truth, accuracy or evidence, unless you can prove that the allegation was published with "actual malice"; that is, "with knowledge that it was false or with reckless disregard to whether it was false or not" (New York Times v Sullivan, 1964).

It's not enough, in the latter case, to show that the defendant neglected to properly verify the facts. You must prove that the defendant acted with "a high degree of awareness of [the allegation's] probable falsity" (St Amant v Thompson, 1968). Of course, it is usually impossible to prove in court what the defendant actually knew or believed.

An American-style libel reform would give many innocent victims of libel no hope of justice, and give the media carte blanche to publish savage attacks on anyone in the public eye, without need to ensure truth or accuracy, as long as no hard evidence emerges to prove that the publisher actually doubted them.

Andrew Clifton

Edgware, Middlesex

Don't apologise for British manners

It may be that Brits are apologetic to the point of irritation (Iain Aitch, 28 August) but long may we remain so. I have just returned from a visit to my previous home countries, Norway and Denmark, where I experienced the joys of being run over by shopping trolleys and pushed aside in queues, all without a word of apology. Greeting a stranger with "Good morning" is received as if you are offering stolen goods or Gary Glitter merchandise.

My children held numerous doors for fat or infirm natives without a word of thanks from the people. So don't feel embarrassed about saying sorry; you may not truly be, but it sure makes for a more pleasant life.

S U Sjolin

Fornham All Saints, Suffolk

Men who accept that 'No' means 'No'

Commenting on Helen Mirren and "date rape", Deborah Orr (3 September) observes that the law cannot always reach offenders, and calls for social responsibility.

It seems to me that the law is often the wrong way round in punishing wrongdoers, and manifestly doesn't work well.

Years ago, horse riders on country roads would wave an angry fist at motorists who drove past them at speed and without a thought for their vulnerable situation (horses being as they are). Then one of the horsey lot had a bright idea: thank those motorists who did show consideration with a wave of the hand. This worked so well that riders nowadays are seldom inconvenienced.

The "tracking positives" technique has always been applied by good parents, teachers and managers of staff. It would be interesting to speculate on how such a technique could be applied by a woman whose "No" was readily accepted in intimate circumstances.

Tony Wood

Farnborough, Hampshire

Georgia: remember the lesson of Cuba

In the war of words and recriminations over the Georgian situation, have not, I wonder, the politicians of the west, and many others, forgotten or never known significant bits of history, notably the Cuban crisis of 1962, which is somewhat analogous, as well as being a good lesson in decision-making?

In brief, President J F Kennedy was alerted to the Russians setting up MRBM (medium range ballistic missile ) sites in Cuba, some 90 miles from the USA. After initial anger and rejection of the "nuking Cuba" option proposed by the hawks, JFK and some advisers wondered why Nikita Krushchev had made such a decision, then were surprised to learn that in 1957 the USA had itself set up MRBMs along the Turkish border with Russia, thus creating a threat. So the Cuban deployment was a tit-for-tat move.

Thus the Russian move was now rational and, however unpleasant, understandable. So negotiations resulted in a blockade of Cuba, removal of its missiles and quiet decommissioning of the Turkish MRBMs.

Now Poland, with a long-standing hatred of Russia, has elected to join Nato with "defensive" missiles on the border with Russia. Mikheil Saakashvili of Georgia, who also wants to join Nato, sets about trying to create a squabble between East and West over Russian-dominated territory. Russia sees all this as encirclement, which it is. It wants an arms embargo which will stop a destructive civil war. US gunboat diplomacy, aggression thinly disguised as humanitarian aid, sends out the wrong signals.

If we really do not want a nuclear war, with all that entails, let us stop this silly squabbling before it escalates beyond control.

Dr James Hutchison

Birmingham

Soon we will have no Bush to blame

George W Bush and the Republican Party are regular whipping boys in these pages, and deservedly so at times, but I feel Johann Hari might have become a little over-excited with his latest use of the riding crop ("The storm clouds that hang over John McCain", 3 September).

It ought to be pointed out that when Dubya retires to his Texan ranch next January, he won't take all the problems of the world with him. Global warming, destructive hurricanes, Islamic terrorism, all of which predate the current administration by considerable margins, will still be with us. Where are we going to shift the burden of blame for our own shortcomings then? The nasty man in Washington won't be there any more.

Personally, I cannot wait to see Barack Obama in the White House to see whether, as is implied with somewhat embarrassing frequency in this newspaper, he really is the true saviour of the entire world.

Philip Edwards

Isleworth, Middlesex

Modest pay for supply teachers

Tony Callaghan is quite right (letter, 1 September). There has been a steep rise in the use of "cover supervisors" (called "classroom assistants" in this area). They are much cheaper to employ than fully qualified supply teachers (about one-third to one-half as much).

But when the writer says, "Supply teachers cost upwards of £250 a day," I feel he is exaggerating. I have reliable information which identifies a fully qualified teacher of some 30 years' experience on Point 2 of the teachers' upper pay scale being paid as a supply teacher £33,060 a year at January 2008. This assumes that he/she works every possible day of the year. That, in practice, is £169.53 gross per day.

John Idris Jones

Ruthin, Denbighshire

No excuse for not mastering English

R J Hoskin of Banbury (Letters, 2 September), suggests that errors in the use of apostrophes might be eradicated by simply losing them.

He's (Hes? Are you kidding?) not alone in suggesting that the answer to poor English is to make it easier. But where might this simplification take us? To the narrow, lifeless simplicity of Orwell's Newspeak?

There's no excuse for the English-born not being in command of their own language. It is up to all of us – parents, teachers, you, me, and anyone and everyone who can and cares – to make sure everyone in this country can read and write the English of today.

Paul Clarke

Oundle, Cambridgeshire

Briefly...

Trade the Titians in

The Government should buy the two old Titians for £100m, sell them for £300m, and spend the £200m profit on new, vibrant, original, living arts of every type and style.

Bernie Corbett

London SE27

Citizens' rights

Is it any wonder that we have become "passive bystanders"' of crime and anti-social behaviour (report, 2 September) when the law-enforcement agencies appear more eager to prosecute householders who injure burglars or yob youths whilst trying to defend their property. The police themselves warn people not to intervene in street crime situations. Until we get a change of emphasis to restore the citizen's right to protect himself and assist others without fear of prosecution, this attitude can only become more entrenched.

Tony Newton

Liverpool

Cycle of hatred

I had Howard Jacobson down as one of my allies, but it seems he's the same as everyone else (30 August). As a cyclist and a dentist can I have some space to point out that actually, I'm not that keen on you lot either?

Toby Gilmore

Chard, Somerset

Price of homes

Though nearly all my wealth is in the fabric of my house and shop, I welcome the fall in their value and do not want the housing market "shoring up". Like anyone with recently or soon-to-be grown up children, I need the price of houses to fall to a level at which my first-time buyer offspring will not need to come to me for a large deposit, which I could only afford by remortgaging at a considerable cost to myself and profit to the banking system.

David Mitchell

Cromford, Derbyshire

Child-free

Alan Etherington has followed the instruction "To avoid suffocation, keep away from children" (letter, 2 September). My older brother tried to do the same in the Sixties by ritually handing to me the tabs from inside Swan Vestas match boxes. They bore the words "Please tear off."

N Granda-Barton

Norwich

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