Letters | 5 June 2010

Don’t bring it home

Sir: Charles Moore is right when he questions the benefit of holding the 2018 World Cup in England (The Spectator’s Notes, 29 May), but he doesn’t go quite far enough. Given the mindless, violent and xenophobic behaviour of many English football ‘fans’ since England won the 1966 World Cup, one can only hope that we don’t host the 2018 World Cup and that England are sent home at an early stage from South Africa in the imminent games. If England wins, we can expect another three generations of boorish and misplaced patriotism.

Laurence Fowler-Stevens
Clanfield, Hants



Land of the fee


Sir: Charles Moore’s revelation that 170,000 cases of ‘evasion’ are heard by the courts every year (The Spectator’s Notes, 15 May) should be another nail in the coffin of the TV licence. As we move into the digital era, the BBC should charge for access to its entertainment channels to allow people to decide for themselves what they wish to pay for and if it is good value. Public service broadcasting such as news and current affairs could be supported by central government funding in the same way as the World Service. The naysayers will suggest that this will impair editorial independence, but this is nonsense — the government already determines the BBC income by agreeing to the level of the licence fee. It is not the method of raising the tax that preserves BBC editorial independence — it is a properly run board and feisty journalists.

The public would be better off without a licence fee as it is expensive to administer, collect and enforce and getting rid of it would save the courts the trouble of processing Mr Moore and 169,999 of his fellow ‘evaders’.

Paul Green
Horsmonden, Kent 

Two-child policy?


Sir: I disagree with Brendan O’Neill’s view.