I WRITE on behalf of 3.7 million over-75s, many having had the TV licence free for many years.

On November 4 this year, Boris Johnson pledged to reverse the controversial cut from the BBC if they won the election on December 12.

Now, the Tories’ way of thanking those daft enough to put them massively in power is by way of a Christmas present informing us that our TV licences will no longer be valid after May 31, 2020.

So much for trust as these letters from the TV Licensing Department were printed in early December. Where are the Tory MPs who vowed to protect us? Scared to speak up, as usual. A few days into Tory rule and Johnson has broken one promise, how many more broken promises must we endure?

This proves they are still the heartless bunch they have always been. Different ringmaster, same circus act. A leopard doesn’t change its spots.

William Moore,

Lochrin Place, York

Decriminalising BBC licence is master stroke

THE future of the BBC was questioned and already the new government has a great idea how best to deal with it.

Rather than doing anything drastic, Boris has decided to simply decriminalise failure to pay the licence fee. A masterstroke which will see the BBC given time and incentive to change its funding model of its own free will, not by force but through a slow starvation of funds. It's a move that means the government isn’t controlling the corporation, it’s the public, who can now decide if they think it’s worth paying for or not.

In the same week the Labour party has declared a period of reflection, a process that normally involves a calm, peaceful study of the truth. What better way to go about that than by a prospective leader launching legal action against a colleague over who said what to whom?

The only credible assessment of the last few months I can see is that Boris is a political genius.

Dr Scott Marmion,

Woodthorpe, York