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)