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Dominic Cummings, keep your hands off the BBC

<span>Photograph: Anthony Devlin/PA</span>
Photograph: Anthony Devlin/PA

Ever since that craggy low churchman John Reith launched the British Broadcasting Company nearly 100 years ago, prime ministers and their advisers from the left and the right have wanted to destroy or control it: Stanley Baldwin, Winston Churchill, Harold Wilson, Margaret Thatcher, Tony Blair, and – now it appears – the Boris and Dominic show. The corporation must be doing something right.

The truth is that, with all its faults, the BBC as a producer of investigative political journalism, cultural riches and socially responsible campaigns is unmatched by any broadcasting service anywhere. It is often the only reliable source of information at times of crisis, and turned to by people all over the world who want to know what’s really going on. And to be moved by extraordinary music, drama and documentaries.

Of course, it’s a wonderful target for conspiracy theorists. When I joined BBC radio in 1968, the buzz was that the place was run by a bunch of rightwing Roman Catholics; a few years later, a cadre of Trotskyites was in charge; Harold Wilson thought it was part of a Tory plot. And so on. A broadcaster that aims to be impartial, creative and a leader of public opinion is bound to be hated by someone. In fact, it’s important that it should be. But please, Mr Cummings, keep your hands off an institution that, next to the NHS, is the UK’s most precious public asset (Johnson aide linked to vow to break BBC, 22 January).
Piers Plowright
London

• In funding the BBC, advertising and subscription are neither the only nor the best alternatives to the licence fee. As long ago as 1991 the Institute for Public Policy Research’s report The Third Age of Broadcasting (which I wrote) argued that all three funding arrangements – regressive licence fee, advertising and subscription – were flawed, and we recommended that the BBC should be financed from direct taxation, like the NHS.

We countered the well-worn argument that this would undermine the BBC’s financial independence by pointing out that a licence fee set by the Treasury meant that independence was already illusory. If the BBC was to be run as a public service, it required public funding. We argued that funding from direct taxation was simply a fairer, more efficient, more honest and less expensive mechanism.

Then and now, financial independence isn’t the point. No public service can be financially independent of its paymasters. Where the BBC’s independence really needs strengthening is in its governance and editorial commitment to its public service remit. That was true nearly 30 years ago, and it’s true today.
David Boulton
Dent, Cumbria

• Public service broadcasting as provided by the BBC is a brilliant idea. It is untrammelled by the needs of advertising, profit and kowtowing to whoever wields power in whatever field. Wherever I have travelled in the world I’ve been told the BBC is simply the best.

It wouldn’t take much to work out a new method of preserving its unique great worth and bringing its financial base up to date. The BBC already purchases and encourages a large percentage of independent productions; it could do more. It could also be carefully slimmed down a bit.

The creative inventions of the BBC and all it does on radio, television, in drama and music, nature and climate change, sport and community, and its clear global reach of outstanding in-depth journalism and search for the truth (surely of utmost importance in todays battle with fake news) is priceless. I would, however, change the rigid, unimaginative and vastly overexpensive management structure it has at the moment – a problem it shares with many choking industries.

If the government thinks the public demonstration of outrage over changes to Radio 4 was impressive, wait till it tries to kill off our BBC.
Anna Ford
London

• Bravo, Jonathan Freedland. Your defence of the BBC is so apposite (Without the BBC we could be facing a post-truth dystopia, Journal, 25 January). The Victoria Derbyshire programme is not only, as you say, much admired but also a classic of first-class contemporary reportage, unequalled on any other channel. If, as appears, cost savings must be found, there is much trash that could be singled out. But please, would whoever succeeds Tony Hall not make the catastrophic mistake of axing or indeed tampering with an exceptional model of broadcasting.
Benedict Birnberg
London

• The BBC’s decision to axe its flagship Victoria Derbyshire show is a devastating blow (Victoria Derbyshire leads protests over BBC decision to axe her show, 24 January). We fear that those who are too often relegated to the margins of our society will now be robbed of a voice.

The show highlights the stories of people regularly ignored by mainstream media, shining a light on complex and difficult topics such as mental illness.

Without its sensitive and award-winning journalism, many wouldn’t have heard Kerean’s story of how waiting weeks for mental health treatment plunged him into a deeper, darker depression; nor would they have heard about Sarah’s battle with anorexia and self-harm and how social media content encouraged her to end her life; nor about the pressures faced by mental health staff as they tackle the country’s mental health crisis.

The BBC has made a longstanding commitment to tackling mental health issues. We strongly urge them to reconsider their decision.
Professor Wendy Burn President of the Royal College of Psychiatrists, Dr Bernadka Dubicka Chair, RCPsych child and adolescent faculty

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