BBC Orchestras cuts would have damaging impact on north west
AS past and current Tutors and Students at the Royal Northern College of Music we are calling upon the RNCM Board of Directors to demonstrate public concern regarding the proposed cuts to the BBC Orchestras.
For the BBC to describe their ‘strategy’ as ‘bold, ambitious, and good for the sector...creating agile ensembles’ is fundamentally dishonest and must be challenged by classical music leadership.
The BBC Philharmonic has long enjoyed a close relationship with the RNCM. Several of its members are past students as are many of its freelancers; in addition they run a successful Professional Experience Scheme together.
By freezing current vacancies and making up to 16 salaried posts redundant in the BBC Philharmonic, the fragile classical ecosystem in Manchester, the wider North West and M62 corridor will be damaged, and audiences let down. If these plans go ahead, Manchester will become a less attractive place to study and work in classical music.
John Bradbury, Joan Rodgers CBE, Ewan Easton MBE, Steven Osborne OBE, Andrew Penny MBE, Sue Addison, Jill Allan, Tom Bangbala, Rupert Browne, Gillian Callow, Martin Clark, Nicola Clark, Matthew Compton, Nicholas Cox, Peter Dixon, Fiona Dunkley, Ronan Dunne, Sian Edwards, Rachel Fillhart, Jennifer Galloway, Roberto Giaccaglia, Beccy Goldberg, Nick Howson, Jennifer Hutchinson, Tim Jackson, Laura Jellicoe, Katy Jones, Brian Kingsley, Katie Lockhart, Kieran Lyster, Karen Mainwaring, Gina McCormack, Roger Montgomery, Lucy Nolan, Craig Ogden, Paul Patrick, Ben Percival, Julian Plummer, Colin Pownall, Marianne Rawles, Simone Rebello, Janet Richardson, Lenny Sayers, Jonathan Small, Lindsey Stoker, Phill Stoker, Gillian Thoday, Yuri Torchinsky, Nick Trygstad, Thomas Verity, Josh Watters, Steven Wilkie, Carolyn Yates
Sir David’s home truths
IT has taken two of our ‘national treasures’ to highlight the inadequacies of our government and its lack of direction as far as the big picture is concerned.
Gary Lineker’s recent forthright comments ruffled a few feathers but provided a welcome reminder about the government’s unkind and failed immigration policies and actions.
Attracting less immediate controversy has been
Sir David Attenborough’s current television series on the British Isles with its wonderful stories of domestic wildlife underscored by the evidence of disappearing wild areas and a dramatic fall in the numbers of insects, both large and small, due to the increased use of pesticides in the constant endeavour by farmers to increase yields and profits, the latter being at the mercy of a weak labour market due to restrictions following Brexit.
Famous for his wildlife programmes over the years
Sir David has long warned about global warming, the most dramatic evidence being found in the Antarctic and other distant regions of the world.
This has made it easy for our government to sweep any public
Viewpoints, M.E.N, Mitchell Henry House, Hollinwood Avenue, Oldham, OL9 8EF viewpoints@men-news.co.uk concerns under the carpet whilst at the same time making pious comments designed to give the impression that this country is a leader on the international stage in this context.
Sir David’s change of focus has altered the equation – business profits will be affected if action is taken to promote a more caring attitude among the farming community and convince everyone that change is necessary to preserve not just our way of life but life itself.
The government has shown an aptitude for financial mismanagement on a grand scale having lost its claimed reputation for good money management.
Mr Lineker’s comments have, we hope, stirred a few consciences and it is to be hoped that the dramatic facts unearthed by David Attenborough’s programme will have prompted a change in attitude by those who, until now, have put monetary profit before the preservation of life in all its forms. Rod Slater, Lymm
Energy debt can’t continue
THE tragic death of 87-year-old great-grandmother Barbara Bolton – who would not put her heating on as she was worried about not being able to pay her energy bills – should remind us all of the stark fact that fear of energy debt can lead to the death of vulnerable people (Hypothermia gran ‘was worried about her heating bills,’ M.E.N., April 4).
The scandalous burgling of debtors’ homes and imposition of more expensive pre-payment meters may be in abeyance due to public outcry, but it remains a fact that the poor pay more whilst often living in the least energy efficient environments.
Debt Justice recently revealed prepay energy users are weighed down by £965 million of energy debt.
Living in cold and damp conditions also leads to the ill health that bedevils many people.
The government and council can huff, puff and strut about requirements it imposes on social landlords, but with a desperate lack of genuinely affordable accommodation many with private landlords may be scared of rocking the boat, souring relations with a slumlord who ignores complaints, refuses to maintain property, and may crank up the rent.
Such people, often the digitally excluded, are ill-helped by a system which is predicated on the complacent assumption they can ‘go online’ to get help.
Spring may be coming, but people still need liberating from fear and actual economic exclusion.
Debt Justice is calling out the government’s complacency in this crisis.
Of course the fundamental solution is decent housing and an energy efficient economy where cheaper local and community owned greener solutions are promoted and outdated fossil fuel dependency is consigned to the history books.
But as stages to get there the scandalous profiteering of energy market buccaneers should be stamped out with effective and just taxation so that those who profit from pollution have an incentive to change their businesses radically. Another approach must be liberating people from energy debt.
Debt Justice has a campaign demanding the government doesn’t let the energy crisis snowball into a debt crisis. We demand the
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