Only the BBC can give us the ‘serious radio’ we love and need

http://www.theguardian.com/theobserver/2015/jul/26/letters-bbc-radio

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Anne McElvoy makes several sound points (“‘The Beeb is not facing involuntary euthanasia’”, Comment). Her easy assumption, however, that BBC radio operates with an unfair advantage – “a serious radio competitor, for example, has never got off the ground…” – must not pass unchallenged. Commercial radio in the UK competes seriously and successfully wherever there is a mass audience to be attracted. It does not, however, compete in “serious radio” because the audience it would attract (for features, documentaries, drama, comedy, etc) is not sufficient to justify the higher costs entailed. What “serious radio” commercial competitor would, for instance, underwrite her regular Radio 3 arts review, Free Thinking, or her Radio 4 series on Charlemagne and his legacy, or even the show where she has now also become a regular, Radio 4’s Moral Maze? Meanwhile, as a frequent visitor to New Broadcasting House, it cannot have escaped her eagle eye that further cuts to BBC radio budgets will seriously threaten the continued existence of any kind of “serious radio”.

Gillian Reynolds

Radio critic, Daily Telegraph

London W2 

The cure is in the kitchen

Tracy McVeigh’s article on the UK’s sweet tooth deals not just with sugary drinks et al but our “poor diet”, citing mostly manufacturers’ products, but does not address the root cause of our increasing ill-conceived eating habits: not cooking from scratch (“Can the UK lose its sweet tooth?”, News.)

Reviving the dying habit of buying good produce and making a simple meal rather than buying ready-made packs, takeaways or fast food would be a remarkable step forward. Who puts sugar in their shepherd’s pie, their bolognese, their fish casseroles? Or adds stabilisers? Or gelling agents, emulsifiers, natural gum and others?

Carol Godsmark

Chichester, West Sussex

Sad demise of probation service

In his otherwise excellent article (“Gove has a vision for reforming prisons – and justice”, Comment), Will Hutton omits to mention the demise of the probation service, which for more than 100 years was the embodiment of rehabilitation in the criminal justice system in England and Wales. Its major statutory responsibilities were to provide impartial information and advice to courts when sentencing offenders, the supervision of offenders deemed likely to respond to community sentences and the through-care of prisoners, both in prison and on release.

The probation service was recognised as a world leader, until political interference, starting in 1994, undermined and ultimately dismantled it.  The coalition government privatised 70% of its work, 21 contracts being awarded to private companies or consortiums, to supervise “low-risk” offenders, while “high-risk” offenders are supervised by civil servants employed by a national statutory body, which retains the name the probation service.

How this new arrangement is working is difficult to judge as yet.  However, early indications are not good, with rumours of major staffing reductions and other cost-cutting measures rife.  Relations between the national body and the 21 contracted companies appear already to be fraught..

The one ray of hope is that voluntary sector organisations continue to work with offenders with the same passion, care and commitment that once epitomised the probation service – some with spectacular success.  As the probation service originally evolved from voluntary beginnings, one might speculate that, in more enlightened times, the wheel will go full circle and that a statutory body will be recreated to be responsible for the rehabilitation of offenders in our society.

Mike Worthington

Former chief probation officer, Northumbria probation service

Hexham, Northumberland

Call royals to account

The Sun was surely right to publish the footage of the Queen giving a fascist salute at Balmoral at the age of six or seven (“Royals told: open archives on family ties to Nazi regime”, News). It would be unfair to blame the Queen but the sequence undoubtedly throws up legitimate questions regarding attitudes to fascism in royal and aristocratic circles.

At that time, no one could have predicted the full horrors of the Holocaust but that doesn’t mean people didn’t know how appalling the regimes had already become in Mussolini’s Italy and Hitler’s Germany, even as early as 1933. Closer to home, Sir Oswald Mosley’s British Union of Fascists was already making use of violence in the streets for political ends and plenty of decent people recoiled from what fascism represented.

In October 1933, my father, the late Dr KP Oakley, volunteered as a London University student to act as a bodyguard for Albert Einstein who was speaking at the Royal Albert Hall, along with other significant figures such as Lord Rutherford and William Beveridge. There had been threats of violence and mayhem from Mosleyite Blackshirts, simply because Einstein was a Jew. There is no doubt that the fascist salute had already got its menacing connotations of violence, extremism and physical brutality directed at Jews and other targeted opponents. It is inconceivable that the royal family could have been completely unaware of this increasingly threatening symbolism. It really is time to open those royal archives. 

Giles Oakley

London SW14