Letters: Unless the BBC ups its game, the licence fee will become indefensible

SIR – Stephen Eades (Letters, March 18) argues that, in terms of value for money, the BBC wins handsomely over various subscription services.

This is not the case for me. I’ve stopped listening to the radio; the plays and serials were once excellent, but they are not now. As for the standard of news, words fail me. I rarely watch television.

My objection to the licence fee is that it is compulsory. With other providers there is, quite rightly, freedom of choice. The BBC, which pays an ex-footballer a ridiculous amount of money while abolishing its choir and cutting its orchestras, needs to change its funding model.

My licence is due for renewal, and I am going to cancel it. I don’t think I will miss it very much.

Susan Firth
Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwickshire

SIR – Stephen Eades defends the licence fee. Would he feel the same way if the position were reversed and he was forced to buy Netflix before he could pay extra to watch the BBC? Would he be happy if the Government told him that, by law, he had to buy a subscription to the Guardian before he was allowed read the Telegraph?

Victor Launert
Matlock Bath, Derbyshire

SIR – Please stop complaining about the licence fee. For those of us living on a pension, it is the best value for money. If the BBC becomes a subscription service, the costs are bound to escalate, and it will become a luxury that many can no longer afford.

Bridget Stevenson
London W12

SIR – “Ah the joys of being allowed to stick to football,” said Gary Lineker just before his return to television, having used his BBC status to preach on politics. Alan Shearer added: “Through no fault of their own some really great people… were put in an impossible situation”. Those “great people” were so unlike the commentators on Radio 5 Live who believed that the public deserved better. Rather, they were lemmings who chose to strike in protest at the BBC trying to enforce its rules.

The sooner these pundits are removed the better.

Bill Todd
Whitton, Middlesex

SIR – Instead of appealing to the better nature of the BBC hierarchy to reverse the disbanding of the BBC Singers (Letters, March 16), maybe the time has come to remove classical music from the BBC’s remit entirely. Clearly the corporation’s heart is no longer in it.

Alternative funding models could be explored – whether public, private or a mixture – for the BBC Singers, the Proms and the five BBC orchestras, in order to put them on a firm financial footing (with different names, of course). The Proms thrived for their first 30 years outside the BBC, and there is no reason why they could not do so again.

Dr Kevin Richardson
London SE13

The end of Putin

SIR – The arrest warrant issued by the International Criminal Court for Vladimir Putin, and supported by more than 100 countries, may not worry the Russian leader, but it should certainly alarm his senior colleagues and the Russian people.

If Russia survives its monstrous assault on Ukraine, its leader will want the country to be gradually rehabilitated. This will entail visiting other countries, meeting their leaders, promoting the interests of Russia overseas, establishing trade links and attracting overseas investment in order to ensure the country’s economic, social and political development.

Such things will be difficult for any leader. But for Putin, they will be impossible. On the international stage, he is finished.

David S Ainsworth
Manchester

SIR – Poland and Slovakia are giving fighter jets to Ukraine. Thank goodness for these brave countries, who have seen what is coming and are prepared to fight it.

Why isn’t our Government following suit?

Carol White
Northwold, Norfolk

Reasons for migration

SIR – Christina Marriott (Letters, March 19) says: “People who have been forced to flee their homes need stability, security and to feel safe.”

Could she please explain to an increasingly resentful British public exactly how tens of thousands of young, single Albanian men have been “forced” to flee their homes – and why the several European countries through which they passed before arriving don’t offer stability and safety?

Alan Tomlinson
Cheadle, Cheshire

Mothers in prison

SIR – I could not agree more with the letter (March 18) about the harm done to mothers in prison – and, to an even greater extent, their children.

I am a retired foster mother. Many years ago, I was at a children’s home in London visiting a three-year-old who was due to come to me. In that home were three little sisters, the eldest being five; apparently the father had walked out, leaving his family destitute. The mother, who had nothing to feed them with, had gone to social services to ask for help and was told someone would visit her that week. Having no food in the house, she had shoplifted, got caught and was sent to prison. So the children were taken into care.

Can you imagine the harm done to those girls – not to mention the cost of keeping them in care – all for the sake of a bag of shopping? I can only hope that, as people are more caring today, such things no longer happen.

Linda Savage
Tonbridge, Kent

Jogging the dog

SIR – I’m not sure who Chris King (Letters, March 17) has been watching in order to conclude that dogs on leads struggle to keep up when their owners jog. My jogging speed is a gentle trot for my dog – who, incidentally, is allowed to stop and sniff plants and objects of interest.

I do agree, however, that cycling with a dog is unsafe and cruel. I recently witnessed a cyclist on a pavement next to a busy road accompanied by two dogs, both running free. Downright stupid.

Alison Jones
Basingstoke, Hampshire

The Covid inquiry

SIR – I am appalled that the Covid inquiry could take up to seven years. Another pandemic could strike during this time, and we would be no better prepared.

If I were a cynical individual, I might suggest that the time frame benefits those whose careers could be negatively affected by the findings.

Ian Robinson
Leeds, West Yorkshire

SIR – What is the point of the Covid inquiry? We have already established that MPs didn’t know what they were doing, civil servants didn’t know what they were doing, so-called experts didn’t know what they were doing, and billions of pounds of taxpayers’ money were spent mostly ineffectually, and without any meaningful cost-benefit analysis.

No lessons will be learnt. They never are.

David Miller
Chigwell, Essex

SIR – Should it now be known as the Long Covid Inquiry?

Colin Burke
Cartmel, Cumbria

Plymouth’s trees

SIR – Plymouth city council’s decision to cut down more than 100 mature trees during the night was a disgraceful act of subterfuge and vandalism – and an insult to the city’s population.

Judging by the pictures in your report, it would seem that many of these trees could have been saved as part of an attractive civic redesign of the area. All too often, mature trees are taken down with the promise of planting a greater number of replacement ones, but these take years to make an impression – if they survive the neglect that usually follows.

Kevin Liles
Southampton

Spot the author

SIR – Richard, my late husband, was taught Latin at Corby Grammar School by Colin Dexter, who wrote the Inspector Morse novels (Letters, March 16).

Dexter liked to appear in every episode of the television adaptation, which meant that Richard was always looking for him. He was often to be found in a choir or orchestra, or in a crowd scene. We then had to re-watch in order to catch up with the story.

Susan Kunc
Brighouse, West Yorkshire

There’s no justification for octopus farming

SIR – You report on the criticism of the world’s first octopus farm, which is being built on the Canary Islands.

I urge people to watch the beautiful and moving film, My Octopus Teacher. No one could endorse such a plan after seeing the bond that develops between the octopus and the diver.

Gillian Gibson
Little Baddow, Essex

One household that’s happier with a heat pump

SIR – I am surprised by all the negative letters (March 18) about heat pumps. We have had an air-source pump for three and a half years, and are very happy with it.

When we heated our house with a gas boiler, the heating was used for three hours in the early morning and three hours in the early evening at about 75C, with the thermostat set at 20C. However, as the heat pump water temperature is set at 50C, we have it running all the time, with the thermostat set at 17C. The house is always warm and a delight to come back to on a chilly day, and we no longer get those times when we had to turn on the boiler to boost the heat.

Tim Southern
Hartley Wintney, Hampshire

SIR – Bad heat pump experiences are not usually to do with the pump per se, but rather the heating system within which it is installed.

There is no “one size fits all”, and nobody should commission an installation without first obtaining a detailed design and a guarantee of the system’s performance. And performance is the operative word – most laymen, and not a few professionals, misuse the word “efficiency”. Heat pumps do not have an efficiency – they have a coefficient of performance (COP), which is the amount of heat delivered where it is needed, divided by the energy required to get it there. A high-quality build, together with good materials, should result in a COP of 2.5 or better.

Most industry designers will understand the concepts of low-temperature heat, and conduction, convection and radiation, and should be able to educate their clients.

Ralph English
Mossel Bay, Western Cape Province, South Africa

SIR – It is clear that heat pumps are unaffordable.

Their cost is small, however, compared with the estimated £3 trillion cost of decarbonising the national grid. That is £120,000 per household, to which must be added the costs of transport and industry.

Yet we only pay about £120 per household a year in green levies, which equates to £3.6 billion. Based on these figures, it will take more than 800 years to pay for net zero.

When will the Government accept that its plan is not viable?

Roger J Arthur
Pulborough, West Sussex

Letters to the Editor

We accept letters by post, fax and email only. Please include name, address, work and home telephone numbers.  
ADDRESS: 111 Buckingham Palace Road, London, SW1W 0DT   
FAX: 020 7931 2878   
EMAIL: dtletters@telegraph.co.uk   
FOLLOW: Telegraph Letters on Twitter @LettersDesk