Outraged letters to the BBC reflect a lost age of innocence
Do you find Blue Peter dangerous? There were once people who did. Colin Shindler, an author and TV producer, has compiled I’m Sure I Speak for Many Others: an anthology of complaints to the BBC from decades gone by. Its contents may be eccentric. But they also give a fascinating insight into our recent past.
In 1960, for example, we find a group of pacifists writing to protest that Blue Peter is militarist propaganda, broadcast “as a recruiting effort primarily designed to persuade young lads to enter the RAF”. Later, in 1964, a viewer fears that a recipe for ginger beer popularised by Blue Peter will make children drunk.
Bad language always aroused anger. “We are trying to plan a better world,” wrote a BBC radio listener in 1945. “Can we do so where the young listen to such words as ‘Damn’ and ‘Blast’?” In 1965, one viewer was so distressed by the use of a rude word in a TV drama that she wrote not to the BBC, but to the Queen. (“I implore Your Majesty to use every vestige of authority which you possess to stop this shame and to voice your own condemnation of these people.”)
Comedy frequently caused offence. “As for that man, [David] Frost, he should be sacked,” demanded a viewer of the 1960s satirical series Not So Much a Programme, More a Way of Life. “His smug smiles are sickening to decent folk.” Till Death Us Do Part, meanwhile, was “trivial drivel”, fumed a viewer in 1967. The BBC, he went on, should stick to making “such wonderful programmes as The Black and White Minstrel Show…”
Parents worried about the loutishness to which TV exposed their children. In one programme, complained a viewer in 1962, a pop singer dribbled his drink down his chin. “Viewers who may not have been trained to proper ways of handling their drinks have absorbed the unconcious suggestion that it is proper for an artist of good repute to be seen behaving in this manner. It is now quite inevitable that some of the younger viewers will have gained the notion that that is a fine way to behave.” Also controversial among parents was Doctor Who. According to a mother writing in 1968, it “comes all too close to the psychological horror of Orwell, Huxley and the Marat/sade”.
I love this book. In its unassuming way, it’s a work of history: a record of changing values, ideals, hopes and fears. Of innocence, and its loss.
I sense a disturbing new trend in our politics. More and more people, it seems, admire politicians who stick to their principles. That’s why, apparently, they like Jeremy Corbyn and Jacob Rees-mogg – even if they think Mr Corbyn and Mr Rees-mogg are wrong. Never mind what their principles actually are; what counts is simply that they hold them, and always will. The other day, a newspaper trailed an opinion column with the following headline. “I Disagree With Rees-mogg on Rape and Abortion – But How I Admire a Man of Real Principle.”
I find that argument peculiar. Holding fast to one’s principles is not in itself an indicator of decency, or automatically deserving of applause. Many of the worst men in history were men of principle. You wouldn’t say, “I may not like enforced starvation and the murder of dissidents, but at least communist dictators have the courage of their convictions.” Or, “It may not be politically correct to flog your prisoners or hang them from cranes, but at least the Ayatollah Khomeini stood for something. He wasn’t afraid to say what he thought. He was honest. He was authentic. You wouldn’t catch him worrying about focus groups or opinion polls or what the bien pensants in Islington might say. He was a man of real principle.”
I’m not, in case this is unclear, suggesting that Mr Corbyn or Mr Reesmogg intend to establish a genocidal autocracy. This outcome seems unlikely. But I don’t see why I should find something inherently admirable in the idea of a politician who has never changed his mind.
We should be wary of political or moral certainty. Better to have leaders who worry about public opinion. Leaders who are willing to abandon ideology and compromise. Leaders who are ready to think again.
Don’t give me a politician with convictions. Give me a politician with doubts.
There’s something I find odd about the never-ending row over Brexit. Those who remain unconvinced by its wisdom are often accused of “talking Britain down”. The implication seems to be that this kind of negative thinking is somehow unbritish.
Quite the contrary. Talking Britain down is this country’s oldest and most cherished tradition. Since time immemorial, it has been an integral part of British daily life. Talking Britain down is our national pastime. Indeed, talking Britain down is what makes us British.
We are a nation of grumbling pessimists. Even though we live in one of the most prosperous, successful and free societies on Earth, we constantly carp about it. We moan about our weather, our public transport, our national football teams, our pop music, our politicians, our schools, our hospitals, our young. Everything. From the very moment men first set foot on these islands, we’ve been complaining that the place is going to the dogs – and predicting that in future things will only get worse.
Talking Britain down is what we do. Which is why I view with suspicion those who ostentatiously parade their love for this country, and hold forth about its glorious future. Can these sunnily beaming optimists really be British? Are we sure they aren’t Russian secret agents, sent by Vladimir Putin to destabilise our society with alien notions like pride, patriotism and self-belief?
The Left-wing group Momentum, I note, has started selling T-shirts emblazoned with the single word “HOPE”. It’ll never catch on.