Blame voters for Boris Johnson and failed politicians – Yorkshire Post Letters

WHILST I fully support Malcolm Naylor’s disdain for the current crop of politicians running the Government, I do disagree with his final premise; that our democracy is not fit for purpose (The Yorkshire Post July 24).

Our politicians are elected by the voters who can trust their vote to any prejudice, spite, aspiration, misunderstanding or considered opinion that they choose. There are many sources of information which voters use to help them make their decisions, regrettably many of very uncertain provenance.

Democracy is one person, one vote, with no further qualification. If this elects incompetent politicians, is this fault of the politicians or the voters? I am sure Mr Naylor wouldn’t countenance vetting the voters before allowing them their democratic right.

Our democracy may give us our incompetent government, with such statesmen as Michael Gove, Gavin Williamson, Matt Hancock and Robert Jenrick, but consider that other great democracy – the USA. There the censorious right-wing Republicans can no longer handle a democracy that rejects them so they are now hellbent on restricting voting rights to only those who support them.

As so often in life we do not get the standards we deserve, we only get the standards we accept. If we keep voting for inept, blundering politicians, then perhaps we are quite happy to accept such low standards – even if we feel we deserve better.

The real danger is when a Government fails to govern within the rules of law and chooses to govern within the law of the rulers.

Left-wing bias at the BBC

From: Gordon Lawrence, Sheffield.

COLIN Moore (The Yorkshire Post, July 21) objects to the claims of Jacob Rees-Mogg that the BBC News Department is staffed largely by personnel whose political predispositions conform to the elite liberal centre left.

Surely it is no coincidence that the Guardian is the most widely read newspaper at the BBC. A reported 1,300 copies are purchased every week. The fact that 86 per cent of the adverts for BBC jobs are in the Guardian surely is of significance and helps substantiate Rees-Mogg’s assertion.

Furthermore, Mr Moore’s bizarre accusation that new appointees proposed by the Johnson government are to the right of Genghis Khan clearly demonstrates his own political status that hardly suggests an impartial view when voicing his own attempt to exempt the BBC from left bias.

A major consequence of the Corporation’s prejudice has been the intervention of the new GB News Channel in an attempt to favour a right of centre focus and balance the political landscape.

I think it is disappointing that presenters like Emily Maitlis, Kirsty Wark, Huw Edwards and Laura Kuenssberg have been allowed to rule the BBC waves without some countervailing conservative (small “c”) opinion.

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