Michael Palin’s blinkered view of North Korea

SIR – I watched the first of Michael Palin’s programmes on North Korea. I believe it gave a false impression of the country.

I’ve been to North Korea twice as a tourist in the last eight years. At first, it does seem oddly beguiling and deceptively familiar. However, it only takes a day or two to realise that something is very wrong, and that everything is a set-up.

What we saw was what the authorities want us to see. The flats Mr Palin was so impressed with are in very poor condition and contain radios which are permanently tuned in to the only (state) station. The food he was eating is tourist food in “tourists only” restaurants.

This approach is dismaying, as well as an insult to the hundreds of defectors, the estimated 200,000 in labour camps, the thousands who have lost their lives under the despicable regime – and to viewers’ intelligence.

North Korea needs to be taken very seriously, not treated as a Disney World curiosity. Veronica Timperley

London W1