PARLIAMENT ON THE AIR

Evening Post, Volume CXXXVIII, Issue 81, 3 October 1944, Page 4

PARLIAMENT ON THE AIR

Sir, —The following recent remarks by Sir lan Fraser, the blind M.P., tend to support your sub-leader of September 25. Sir lan Fraser has been a member of the House of Commons for many years and a member of • the Board of Governors of the 8.8.C. since 1936. His objection seems, in the light of our experience, to be extremely well founded:—

"Early in my Parliamentary career I asked whether. the proceedings of the House of Commons could be broadcast. This caused quite a stir in the newspapers and in the House itself, and there was much discussion. I pressed the matter a number of times, but the House was opposed to the innovation, and I confess-that, as a young, new member, keen on broadcasting, I felt out of sympathy with this reluctance. I thought it was due to needless traditionalism. Now, after nearly twenty years in public life, I have changed my view and would myself oppose the broadcasting of the proceedings of Parliament. The fundamental objection which cannot, I think, be overcome is that speaking in debate to the particular audience around, you is a different art to speaking to a microphone for the mass of electors. If the microphone entered the House of Commons the intimacy and personal nature of our debates would be adversely affected, and speeches now addressed to the House would tend to become orations addressed to the nation."—l am, etc., , E.S.