The BBC coverage is hardly impartial

Sir, – Jenny Hjul (“We must all watch the BBC”, The Courier, January 10) is right to tell us to watch the BBC, but the corporation seems to have recently changed its name to Believers Broadcasting Christianity.

In December the BBC broadcast an entire Radio 4 Today programme from Lambeth Palace, the Church of England headquarters.

It gave an hour of unchallenged airtime to the Archbishop of Canterbury and others to proselytise, over and above the usual Thought for the Day slot it reserves for the religious guardians of our morality.

Your readers may have noticed that the Church of England is currently the subject of an ongoing Government-sponsored public inquiry into the cover-up of child abuse by its clergy, and indeed by some of Justin Welby’s fellow bishops.

No fewer than five current or former bishops, including the current Archbishop of Canterbury and two of his predecessors, are either directly implicated in a cover-up of child sex abuse, are under active police investigation for this grave offence, or have been exposed as having done so.

Since when did it become the policy of the national ‘state broadcaster’ to give a fellow pillar of the establishment the airtime to redeem its damaged reputation during a public inquiry into its activities?

Has the BBC learned nothing from the Savile scandal?

Alistair Mcbay. National Secular Society,

5 Atholl Crescent, Edinburgh.

The Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby. Is the BBC’S Church of England coverage justified?