Two years ago, Camden introduced a strong staff code of practice, including a requirement to declare membership of secret societies, and any suggestion that Masons or any other such grouping wield influence in Camden is well wide of the mark.Yours sincerely,Jane RobertsDeputy LeaderLondon Borough of CamdenLondon, NW123 June. Camden places great emphasis on high standards of propriety and the District Auditor has recognised major improvements in our financial planning and management.Our housing benefits team has won a Chartermark and is successfully tackling any possible fraud These efforts have saved nearly pounds 3 million to date. Sir: I was flabbergasted to read David Walker’s article, “The true cost of corruption”. The allegation that the “Monklands syndrome” exists wherever Labour has been in power for a long while is outrageous. Camden came into existence only in 1965 and Labour has not held control “for generations”; the Conservatives have controlled the council during that period, and between 1976 and 1980 Labour enjoyed only a very slim majority.
Labour is, however, very proud to have had the confidence of our electors and we have had a healthy majority over the last six years. If biased broadcasting is carried out efficiently, asking its victims whether or not they thought it was biased is an exercise in futility.Yours sincerely,Norris McWhirterThe Freedom AssociationLondon, SE1.
Year after year, however, the Independent Television Commission solemnly avers that some supposedly precise percentage of the viewing public believes that television is biased towards the Conservatives (“Viewers say BBC bias favours Tories”, 22 June).
How many of those polled systematically watched even one whole series of political programmes? How many of them bothered to review and analyse the programme texts? How many of them are Labour supporters or other opponents of the Government? How likely is it that viewers strongly supporting one political party would form the impression that programmes slanted towards that party are, in fact, examples of bias? What, in short, is the value of this hopelessly subjective survey besides being grossly unscientific PR for the broadcasting establishment?The whole point of partisan propaganda is to sway the views of the target audience without the target audience knowing what is being done to it. Those findings, however, were based on systematic motoring of entire programme series and were backed up by detailed textual criticism of programme transcripts. Sir: When the right-of-centre Media Monitoring Unit used to publish its reports on political bias in broadcasting between 1985 and 1990, the media establishment sought to rubbish its findings as subjective. The superstores have responded to the basic needs of a car- borne society, which is a one-stop shop (with kids in tow) for the family groceries They should be congratulated, not castigated. The large grocery retailers have invested heavily: in the latest technologies (bar coding, computerised stock control); in creating pleasant surroundings for their customers; and in developing innovative product lines (notably, convenience meals). They took the risk of moving their product up-market and it paid off handsomely.
They are a shining example to the rest of British industry.
These are not just the opinions of a happy shopper. They are the conclusions of a serious economic analysis of retailing recently published by London Economics. It is time to stop bashing the superstores.Yours sincerely,Bill RobinsonLondon EconomicsLondon, W123 June. Sir: I take strong exception to Stephen Plowden’s assertion that the growth of superstores in Britain has been a disaster (letter, 23 June).
Superstores provide a range and variety of products at prices their competitors cannot match. Sir: Not all head girls are chosen on aesthetic grounds (letter, 22 June). In the 1960s, I was tall but certainly “fat, big-nosed and notoriously bad at sport”. Still, I don’t think Bletchley Grammar School did badly by me. Yours faithfully,
Maggie ButcherAcademic AdministratorGresham CollegeLondon, EC122 June.
“Period” is the American term for what English people call “fullstop”. As if two alien expressions were not enough, the writer then uses the phrase “Last evening” in his desperate fax asking for the return of his confidential message.
What is the significance of such semantic subservience to a foreign power? And just how extensive is the influence of the egregious Gingrich upon the right wing of the Tory party? I think we should be told.Yours faithfully,Sasha LubetkinWinchester19 June. Sir: Can it be that Jonathan Aitken’s PR adviser, Patrick Robertson, is in cahoots with the CIA (“PR man threatens to sue over fax gaffe”, 19 June)?
The date of Mr Robertson’s misdirected fax is written in the American style: month first followed by day; then, on the second page of the fax, under point two, there occurs the phrase: ” to stop all enquiries into you, period”. In an old scrapbook I have a newspaper clipping reporting the death in 1975 of “the world’s oldest man” in Altamira, north Brazil, one Doroteu de Souza who had been born on 4 April 1808.
Yours faithfully,Peter DanielWorthing,West Sussex23 June.
