Thursday, April 21, 2016

Letter to the Editors (1985)

Letter to the Editors from the November 1985 issue of the Socialist Standard

5th August 1985

BBC Television 
Broadcasting House 
London W1A 1AA

Dear Sirs

I watched your programme, Choices, An Embarrassment of Riches on Sunday last. 4th August. and found myself once again experiencing a BBC "discussion" in which only half the argument is debated. (If ever a programme cried out for some expression of the idea of common ownership of the means of living in a propertyless world of production to satisfy human need, this one did.)

Can you please explain, therefore, why it is that, despite the existence of so powerful a philosophy (socialism) which grew out of the intellects of such giants as Plato, John Ball, Gerrard Winstanley, William Morris, Karl Marx, Rosa Luxemburg, Friedrich Engels (to name but a few), your programmes should be so emasculated in this respect? After all, our masters haven't censored you in this area yet, have they? - Or have they?

Richard Cooper 
Skipton, North Yorkshire

(The BBC's reply - a printed postcard saying "Thank you for your recent letter which is being brought to the notice of the producer concerned". EDITORS)

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