KATE Ironside's defence of the BBC (August 17) this week brings to mind the old adage: "He who excuses himself, accuses himself". The absolute purity of the Beeb's impartiality she ascribes to the world's best broadcaster is for the angels, not mere human beings.

For most of my 69 years I have been a great fan of the BBC, especially the World Service, which is paid for by the Foreign Office to disseminate pro-British propaganda. And I have no quibble with that. But I do believe something changed shortly after the death of Dr David Kelly.

The Beeb has outgrown her parents' home and the neighbourhood in which she grew up. Once the mouthpiece of a great world power, she also has to content herself with stultifying parochialism coinciding with the rising power of the European Union.

So, in the name of impartiality, she is steadily diluting her British identity and thinking globally from a European perspective.

The crunch will come if and when the Government cuts her budget, especially if it gives ITV and/or Channel 4 a share of the licence fee which currently binds the Beeb's hands and feet when she knows that the excellence of her production and inventiveness – the BBC was first to use zoom lenses and TV tape recorders – means that she could thrive in the world market with no subsidy from British taxpayers at all.

The TV licence is just another voluntary tax, like the duty on alcohol and tobacco, serving similar functions. No-one can work very hard while drinking, smoking, driving a car or watching television. Britain got where we once were by the hard work we don't do any more, which explains our relative decline.

I think the only thing holding back Auntie Beeb is her attachment to "public service" broadcasting, and she is hanging on in case she can get the job of public service broadcaster to the European Union, because being a king-maker is always more fun than being king.

Tony Maskell

Newton Ferrers

Eat what you preach

DEFRA Secretary Hilary Benn has recently talked about the UK becoming more self-sufficient in its food production and has stated that "it's about people eating more food seasonally".

Disappointing, therefore, that the Government does not practise what it preaches. As part of its Rural Manifesto campaign to promote British farmers and producers, the Countryside Alliance wrote to the main Government departments asking how much of the produce they serve is British. The answers would make Mr Benn blush.

The Foreign Office said "no detailed breakdown exists of individual residences" and the Cabinet Office, which runs No 10, said: "There is no information on whether the proportion of food procured in the past 12 months was domestically produced." Only the Treasury scored well and sources a high proportion of UK produce.

This is simply not good enough. If the Government is telling us all to eat British it should be leading by example.

Talking about it is all very well but you can easily be found out – as the Prime Minister has been by saying in Parliament that "we all know British bacon is best" when the Cabinet Office hadn't bought a single rasher.

Simon Hart

Countryside Alliance London

Protection injustice

THERE is a furore regarding taxpayers' money being used to protect the killers of poor little "Baby P" from attack while they are in prison.

It seems to me there is an inconsistency in the law here, because when someone goes to the police asking for protection from a known threat by another person, the police say no crime has yet been committed, so they can't act.

The consequences of such non-action are sometimes dire for the innocent party.

Yet these killers – who are in no way innocent – are to receive pre-emptive protection. Where's the justice?

Marilyn Warbis

Plymouth

Challenge to MPs

I HAVE been looking at Liberal Democrat policy and am disquieted when I read that they are in favour of the EU arrest warrant which allows you or me to be taken for trial in another country, without any evidence of a crime needing to be shown to a British court, even for a crime that's not an offence in this country.

They are also in favour of the Lisbon Treaty, which gives powers to an EU police force over those of our own police and whose officers are immune from prosecution.

They are also actively supporting the "yes" vote in the Irish referendum on the Lisbon Treaty in spite of the fact that the Irish have already said "no".

This means that the Liberal Democrats are neither liberal nor democratic, so where does this leave our MPs who reputedly are Eurosceptic? If they were honourable, surely they should resign from the Lib-Dems and stand up for their beliefs.

I would like to see them try to justify their stance through this paper.

David Beagley

Ilfracombe

Vengeance is God's

NICE to know that Patrick Nicholls (column, "A case for the executioner", August 13) checks his scriptural references.

However, if he was to read on in Matthew, ch. 18, he would see that Jesus is not supporting capital punishment, as Mr Nicholls seems to imply, but warning prospective offenders against children that when they come to face with their maker the punishment they can expect is to be cast into hell for all eternity – so making being "cast into the sea with a millstone around his neck" the softer option.

And doesn't Jesus say somewhere else that we should leave revenge and retribution to God and not try to wreak it ourselves?

Joshua Mann

Devonport