Quintin Jardine's blog

With all the reviews that are going in within the BBC, perhaps someone will spare time to look at the following and ask a basic and reasonable question.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/languages/index.shtml

Why, in this day and age, is the British broadcasting tax-payer funding services in 27 different global languages, including Hausa, Kirundi, Kyrgyz, Azeri, and a few others of which most Brits have never heard? Some of my friends tell me I should be proud of the BBC World Service, which, they say, has flown the flag for decades. However given that we are now broadcasting to countries whose only interest in that flag is as a fire-lighter, I say to them that enough is enough. If we are going to use the BBC as a means of spreading the British message abroad, surely we should focus on  those countries where it is relevant, namely our European neighbours and partners, and provide services in German, Italian, Dutch, Flemish, Danish, Swedish, Czech, Polish, which currently we don’t. I don’t advocate that we do that, but I do believe the time has come for the British voice in Pashto, Nepali, Uzbek, and all the rest, to fall silent, and for the money to be put to a better use.