Privatising TV channels means placing profit over quality content

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The government is pushing for Channel 4 to be privatised (Getty Images)

What is it about the Tory mindset? It seems that anything that can be privatised, will be. It is obvious to even a simpleton that if a television provider gets into the hands of the private sector, profit becomes the driving force of its output.

Ofcom may have the notional responsibility to ensure a balanced output of programmes and news content, but experience shows that the minimum of quality content is broadcast and as much trivial programming as possible, with large viewing figures attractive to advertisers, becomes the norm. This may sound elitist, but experience shows that privatisation tends to either increase cost or reduce quality wherever it has been applied.

As with other previously state-owned (ie taxpayer-owned) organisations, selling off “the family silver” to quote Lord Stockton (Harold Macmillan) gives the government an injection of cash that can be used for dubious vanity projects such as HS2, but impoverishes the nation at large.

Patrick Cleary

Stonehouse, Gloucestershire

Nationalist anthem

From promising our citizens £350m a week for the NHS five years ago, we are now reduced to little more than flag-waving, and even more sinister, a government endorsed programme of encouraging primary school pupils to sing patriotic songs.

Looking at the “One Britain One Nation” song immediately reminded me of the kind of state-issued propaganda you’d see in ultra-nationalist countries such as North Korea.

You wonder how far this country is yet to fall?

Robert Boston

Kingshill, Kent

Travel lockdown

The government and opposition seem to now almost fully agree with regards to international travel restrictions in response to the Covid-19 pandemic.

Rather than establishing structural changes that will enable safe yet convenient travel, the prime minister seems to have come round to the idea of simply locking the country’s gates. The Labour leader just wants him to go a bit further and throw the keys away.

Bambos Charalambous

Manchester

Photo op PM

I am deeply impressed by the boundless energy and confidence our prime minister displays with his endless travels from one end of the country to the other to maximise on every possible photo opportunity. Whether that’s holding up sausages one day – presently disbarred from Northern Ireland – and travelling to a port to hold up a dead fish, visiting a laboratory to look through a microscope at possibly nothing but specs of dust, or, indeed, visiting a hospital to help carry large boxes of medication. This is not only admirable, but also brave.

I have the sense that those endless photo opportunities appear to take up too much time to focus on what actually matters, other than the next election?

Gunter Straub

London

Stick instead of carrot?

The carrot approach of scholarships, large lotto prizes and even food vouchers being given as incentives for getting vaccinated has helped, but it looks like the numbers being done have started to stagnate and we are well below the herd immunity levels that we want.

Maybe it’s time to use a stick approach. People who don’t get vaccinated are endangering people, so what options are there?

They could be denied access to some transport means such as planes, effectively locking them in their own country. They could be denied access to sporting events or even restaurants if they cannot prove their vaccination status. Most restaurants and many other venues have a sign that says we can deny you service for any reason we want, although it is usually no shirt, no service. If they have a medical exception, then that can be shown.

We must all get vaccinated – I’m getting tired of lockdowns.

Dennis Fitzgerald

Melbourne, Australia

Who to support now Scotland?

So who will the SNP establishment at Holyrood support in the Euros now Scotland’s knocked out? The only country with which Scotland has a land border, has 300 years plus of shared heritage, and where nearly a million Scots live? Or some other European country, selected because it’s not England?

Martin Redfern

Melrose, Scotland