SIR – If the Platinum Jubilee celebrations could be summed up in one word, that word would be duty: the Queen’s duty carried out so faultlessly and uncomplainingly for 70 years; the duty also so perfectly performed by other members of the royal family and by thousands of sailors, soldiers, airmen, security services personnel, police officers, organizers and support staff of all kinds, who combined to carry off the magnificent spectacle.
Is it too much to hope that it will inspire all those in the public and private sectors hitherto refusing to give up working from home, and all those drawing benefits while not seeking to take up any of the thousands of job vacancies now available, to realise how dramatically the fortunes of their nation would be transformed for the better if they too strove for optimum performance of duty?
David Cockerham
Bearsted, Kent
SIR – What a wonderful day we all enjoyed on Thursday. The sun shone, the Queen beamed, the military parades and the fly-past entertained us royally.
The huge crowds along the mall were impeccably behaved and, might I say, very well dressed, too – men in suits and ladies in pretty summer frocks.
Linda Major
London SW15
SIR – The walking stick that the Queen used while standing to see Trooping the Color may have been a special gift from the Army (report, June 3), but the one favored and relied upon for all events that required her to walk was the very special thumb-stick presented to her by the RAF Regiment.
Squadron Leader Jerry Riley (retd)
Edinburgh
SIR – I lost count of the number of times the BBC, during its coverage of the Trooping the Color ceremony, reminded viewers that there are people who don’t agree with these celebrations.
Why did the BBC need to mention this? We are well aware of the existence of those who hate the monarchy – a noisy minority.
Can’t we at least forget them for a few hours?
Stephen Badham
Portsmouth, Hampshire
SIR – It would appear that I live in the socialist republic of Kirklees.
In Huddersfield, there were no flags flying or bunting in the streets – in fact nothing to celebrate the Queen’s 70 years on the throne. A disgrace.
David Sisson
Huddersfield, West Yorkshire
SIR – I will not be making the Jubilee trifle, cheat’s or otherwise (Letters, June 2), due to the inclusion of jelly.
Jelly in a trifle is an abomination introduced to make it acceptable to children, and should never be included when it is served to adults. It is certainly not fit for a queen.
Amanda Rowlands
Ross on Wye, Herefordshire
Tory party hijackers
SIR – Boris Johnson has hijacked the Conservative Party in the same way that Jeremy Corbyn hijacked Labour.
With the Prime Minister heaping tax rise on tax rise and providing pocket money for all, it feels as though it was Mr Corbyn who was elected in 2019.
Mr Johnson hits business hard with increased corporation tax and windfall taxes. Not content that no part of the public sector is performing properly, he now wants to cripple the engine of our economy: the private sector.
I have difficulty recognizing in him any Conservative vision or values. His net-zero stance has become an unaffordable religion. It is about time those letters submitted around him to move him off to pastures new.
Idris White
Sevenoaks, Kent
SIR – Jonathan Sumption’s analysis of partygate captures the instincts of the British people – instincts that will guide how they vote in the next general election (“Partygate is really about leadership, lies and the death of trust”, Comment, May 29).
Despite the attractions of Boris Johnson, voters see he does not have the integrity to be our prime minister. If he leads the Conservatives into the next election, they will be destroyed. The Conservative Party needs to snap out of its torpor and find a new leader.
Phillip Scott
Devizes, Wiltshire
SIR – It’s hardly surprising that so many people think that the Conservatives have lost their way when they are led by a man who achieved everything he had ever wanted the moment that he became Prime Minister.
John Stewart
Terrick, Buckinghamshire
Funding the BBC
SIR – Claire Enders (Letters, May 29) is rightly respected as a leading analyst of UK media. However, she has long had a blind spot about replacing the BBC license fee.
The proposal she misrepresents is that the license fee should be replaced by a mixture of public funding and subscription. The public funding would pay for the BBC’s public-service output: news, current affairs, regional content, religion, arts, children’s, education and many documentaries. These are the genres long recognized as not being supplied in sufficient quantity by the market, and so require public funding. Such output would continue to be broadcast free-to-air, with no need for encryption.
Meanwhile, access to the BBC’s entertainment output would indeed require payment of a subscription, probably in the region of £10 per month. There are multiple ways in which this content could be secured by would-be consumers. Ms Enders is wrong to suggest that people would need to pay £17.99 a month for a new smart television or £33 a month for a Sky package in order to receive a BBC subscription service (though the households currently paying those sums voluntarily could easily add on the BBC for a modest amount).
The easiest way for the BBC to reach potential customers would be to upgrade standard Digital Terrestrial Television set-top boxes by adding a conditional access module – the mechanism that the BBC deliberately blocked 20 years ago when it took responsibility for the Freeview transmission system would be strongly in the BBC’s interest to fund these upgrades, and right to reverse a policy designed to frustrate an attempt to introduce subscription funding.
There is no public policy requirement for every household to be able to gain access to one more entertainment service, even if it is supplied by the BBC. Millions have chosen to subscribe to Netflix, Amazon Prime, Disney+, Sky and Virgin Media without any pressure to do so. If some choose to do without, so be it: that is the essence of consumer choice.
David Elstein
Former CEO, Channel 5
London SW15
Post Brexit mail
SIR – On May 16 I posted a small gift-wrapped book to a friend in France, paying £4.25 postage. On the customs declaration form, I clearly identified the contents as: book, value £10.
On May 20, the friend emailed apologetically to say that she’d rejected the package, having been asked to pay a 34 euro customs duty.
The book (Proust’s letters, ironically) was returned to me in the post on May 31, with my friend’s furious scribble across the envelope: “Je refuse toute taxation abusive”.
Is this a one-off, or have others experienced the same since Brexit?
Kate Mattock
Bristol
Skilled labor shortage
SIR – Leveling up is needed, and more selective education places in grammar schools (Letters, May 29) may help provide opportunities across the country.
However, the key to wide and extensive leveling up is vocational and technical education, which has been destroyed by government policy over many years.
Yet again, our politicians show rigid views about the importance of academic education and training, and pay lip service to practical skills-based programmes.
Surely the current shortage of skilled labour, whether it is caused by Covid or Brexit or by something else, points to a lack of training in areas such as catering, IT, electronics, banking, nursing, social care, HGV driving, gardening, building and, of course, vocational teaching.
Real policy change to develop skilled workers is required if we are serious about economic growth and leveling up.
Terence Dillingham
Former Vice Principal, Worcester College of Technology
SIR – I read with interest letters on grammar schools and the doors they opened for those who passed the 11 plus. No mention is made, however, of the strong education available for those of us who failed the 11 plus but passed the 13 plus.
I went to a technical college when I passed the 13 plus. There were two streams: commercial for the girls and technical for the boys.
I was taught to read a balance sheet and put together a profit and loss account, and had lessons in commerce, world affairs, business English and much more.
The boys were taught technical drawing and received a practical education that fitted them to become carpenters, plumbers or similar, or to get good jobs in local factories.
The skills taught to both streams are badly needed today.
Susan Hatton
Milton Keynes, Buckinghamshire
SIR – Your report (May 30) on the Government considering lifting the ban on new grammar schools made my blood run cold when it mentioned that civil servants were opposed to the move.
My understanding was that the purpose of the Civil Service is to advise its political masters (who we elect as our representatives) and then implement the policy that their masters decide upon.
In what universe are civil servants entitled to have any other role than this advisory one?
Bill Davidson
Balderton, Nottinghamshire