Letters: ITV cancel culture defies the principle of innocent until proved guilty

SIR – Why should we ever watch an ITV serial again if, on a virtue-signalling whim, it can cancel the final episode of Viewpoint staring Noel Clarke on the day it was scheduled to be broadcast (report, May 1)? What is the point of a serial without its finale?

While the allegations against the actor may be serious, they are, as yet, unproved. Has ITV never heard of “innocent until proved guilty”?

Dr Roger Litton
Harrogate, North Yorkshire

SIR – As a youngster I was taught that I would be innocent until proved guilty.

Some years ago, the then Director of Public Prosecutions told the Crown Prosecution Service that those alleging crime should be called victims and believed by the police. This resulted in senior members of the public being charged on the word of a fantasist.

We now have progressed to guilty as alleged until proved innocent. The Royal family and our Prime Minister are examples of this reversal of the presumption to guilty until proved innocent. When will we revert to innocent until proved guilty?

His Honour Lord Parmoor
High Wycombe, Buckinghamshire

SIR – What has happened to our world‑renowned legal system? We used to presume innocence until proved guilty. Now users of Twitter, Facebook and Instagram instantly make their minds up about rights or wrongs, with each subsequent post getting more hysterical.

A series of celebrities have been suspended, sacked, vilified, and on Friday night the finale of a popular series was pulled because of alleged activities of the lead actor.

Did anyone give thought to how the rest of the cast felt – or the viewing public? It was reported that ITV’s decision followed “media pressure”. Had Noel Clarke been charged and found guilty after due process, this could be understood, but there was no more than a kangaroo court.

Doug Prewer
Yateley, Hampshire

SIR – I, like many people, had been enjoying Viewpoint – although, for full disclosure, I did fall asleep for a few minutes during three of the four episodes, so was not totally sure what was going on. (I made plans to watch last night’s finale of Line of Duty standing up.)

It is good that the finale of Viewpoint was put on the ITV Hub for 48 hours. However, nothing sums up the strange world that we now live in better than its press statement that said it was available “for a limited time for any viewers who wish to seek it out, and watch its conclusion”. Why use such pompous language?

James Sneath
Eastbourne, East Sussex

SIR – On what basis does Bafta make its awards?

I do not seek to excuse bad behaviour, but either one has made an Outstanding Contribution to British Cinema or one has not.

Brian Slater
Ellesmere, Shropshire

CofE ethnic quotas

SIR – As the vicar in a Surrey village, I was called to my vocation to love and serve everyone equally. I deplore the sin of racism and have no qualms with legal initiatives to remove it. However, is that what the important report From Lament to Action by the Archbishop’s Anti-Racism Taskforce is aiming to do?

A key point of action, being implemented nationally, is that 15 per cent of appointments to the Bishop’s Council, the central decision-making body in each diocese, should be from a UK minority ethnic or global majority heritage background.

Where does this percentage quota come from? The 2011 census concluded that 13 per cent of the national population are UK minority ethnic. No doubt that has increased over the last 10 years. However, approximately half of this grouping are Muslim, Hindu and Sikh in their faith – and extremely unlikely to aspire to leadership roles in a church.

Consequently, the maximum Christian UK minority ethnic population is nearer 7.5 per cent. So, on its implementation, this recommendation will institutionalise twice that proportion of minority representation. This is not only inappropriate but, if impacting individual appointments, illegal.

Rev James McKeran
Witley, Surrey

Smart and a half

SIR – I am 76 years and live alone. I have a smart phone, a smart alarm system, smart heating controls and am awaiting my smart meter. My modern car also has many smart features.

Smart technology (Letters, May 1) keeps me in touch with family and friends wherever I may be, gives me confidence and control, all with minor additional cost over savings.

What is the opposite of being smart?

Barry Broome
Lichfield, Staffordshire

Hello, Boris here

SIR – Comment by those interviewed by the BBC about security and Boris Johnson’s mobile phone exhibits ignorance. There is nothing insecure about his number being accessible.

The network operator, or the PM himself, can divert all incoming calls to the No 10 switchboard. Using his number to contact him should be seen as a sign of democracy in action.

If calls are too many, technology can sent them to a call centre for triage.

Robert Blair
Farnham, Surrey

Raspberry jam

SIR – The row over the Prime Minister’s spending on refurbishment reminds me of the Duke of Wellington being asked to account for 1s 9d in petty cash and “the number of jars of raspberry jam issued to one cavalry regiment during a sandstorm in western Spain” during the Peninsular War.

His stiff reply ended by asking the powers-that-were to choose between two duties for him to pursue, since he could not do both: “To train an army of uniformed British clerks in Spain for the benefit of the accountants and copy-boys in London or, perchance, to see to it that the forces of Napoleon [Covid] are driven out of Spain [the United Kingdom].”

Peter Wigley
Chester

SIR – I remember watching a country solicitor cross-examining an evasive defendant charged with attempted theft of fish. It was very similar to Prime Minister’s Questions.

Mark Solon
London E1

Bright idea for France

SIR – Allister Heath’s article (“The EU’s stupidity will spark a new Brexit war”, Comment, April 30) is well timed. He identifies government preparations for a new phase in our European relations; Lord Frost knows what he is doing.

Mr Heath remarks that “nobody remembers the wonderful Cobden–Chevalier Treaty of 1860, a pioneering Anglo-French free trade agreement”. I dealt with it in my book, John Bright: Statesman, Orator, Agitator.

Richard Cobden negotiated the Commercial Treaty and Bright was very much involved. Gladstone backed it, but Palmerston was against. On the French side, Michel Chevalier had read a speech by Bright in the Commons in July 1859 and was deeply impressed, despite Palmerston’s antipathy to France. The success of the treaty prompted Palmerston to claim credit.

If only the EU could behave as constructively as Chevalier (who in turn convinced Napoleon III) there would be no need for “a new Brexit war”. The Northern Ireland Protocol problem could then be resolved.

Sir William Cash MP (Con)
London SW1

No law against a hug

SIR – Dr Richard Soper (Letters, April 30) says that the “Government should allow us to embrace those we’ve missed for so long”.

It is not the Government’s business. The law currently says we cannot meet indoors except as a single household and only six may meet outside, but the law does not stop us embracing when we do meet. That is just guidance.

It is time the British people assessed their own risk. If the Government saw the people unilaterally reverting to usual social practice, perhaps it would realise it’s time to stop trying to control our everyday lives, through the law or guidance. The Government seems intent on blurring the boundaries between the two in its proclamations.

Richard Hopkinson-Woolley
London SW19

The golfing jungle

SIR – It always seemed to me that, on country golf courses especially, the competition was to see who could cope best with the prevailing conditions, whether it was fierce rain, pheasants on the green or horses crossing the fairway.

Crane-fly larvae (Leading Article, May 1) are a minor obstacle compared with onshore winds and dozy sheep.

Liz Wheeldon
Seaton, Devon

What’s left after removing the big smell

SIR – I remember in the late 1960s a smoker arriving at work complaining he’d had to travel in a non-smoking compartment (“Stalwart scents, Letters, April 30). “It stank of people,” he said.

Ian Smith
Wickham Bishops, Essex

SIR – For me, the most evocative lost smell of all is that of the traditional British pub.

The combination of sweet, hoppy, freshly pulled pints, mixed with the flatter, more earthy smell of beer dregs languishing in the slop trays, the faint whiff of dampness and yeast rising from the cellar, coalescing in a background of tobacco smoke was a wonderful experience enjoyed by, mostly, men of a certain age.

I have no regrets at the banning of smoking in pubs, but the aromas encountered in a “gastro-pub” will never compete with the sensory experience of the pubs of old.

Leslie Mills
Wansford, Cambridgeshire

SIR – Sun-warmed cat.

Caroline Leeks
Halesworth, Suffolk

Strangely labelled boxes

SIR – When helping my husband in clearing the contents of his late mother’s bungalow, I came across a neatly wrapped parcel, done up in crisp brown paper and string (Letters, May 1). The label (everything had a label) said that the contents were “Broken glass”. She, as ever, was quite correct.

Patricia Twist
Preston, Lancashire

SIR – When my husband died, we found in his “little box” a number of unnamed keys on a fob. I saved them, and was I glad!

Six years later we discovered the keys belonged to three safe deposit boxes kept in the bank.

Barbara Chapman
Rotherfield, East Sussex

SIR – Readers might like to know that it’s worth checking those old boxes. I did that just now and a wine box labelled “Lesley’s old handbags” turned out to contain 10 bottles of a rather fine vintage.

Lesley Thompson
Lavenham, Suffolk

SIR – When I was the professor of surgery at King’s College Hospital, among my active filing system of research papers were two box files, one labelled “Work in progress”, and the other “Work not in progress”.

When I retired 15 years ago, I couldn’t bring myself to abandon the second box, so it came home with me, with now long-forgotten good intentions. It is still in my home office, and no doubt my children will send it for secure shredding once I am gone.

Professor Emeritus Irving Benjamin
Deal, Kent

Letters to the Editor

We accept letters by post, fax and email only. Please include name, address, work and home telephone numbers. ADDRESS: 111 Buckingham Palace Road, London, SW1W 0DT

FAX: 020 7931 2878

EMAIL: dtletters@telegraph.co.uk

FOLLOW: Telegraph Letters on Twitter @LettersDesk