The Joy of Six 1117

"We have obtained an excoriating letter sent to the BBC chairman, Richard Sharp, by the co-directors of the BBC Singers. The letter mentions aggressive acts and inaccurate statements by senior BBC officials, all of whom are named within. It appears that only one member of the BBC executive ever heard the BBC Singers perform before a decision was taken to abolish the ensemble." Norman Lebrecht uncovers fear and loathing at the BBC.

Advocacy groups and human rights organisations have written to Andy Burnham, the mayor of Greater Manchester, and to Stephen Watson, its chief constable, to ask them to investigate discriminatory police practices in the wake of the conviction of ten young Black men who have become known as the Manchester Ten, reports the Open Rights Group.

Zach Boren on the government's decision to ignore the counsel of its nature advisers to be more ambitious in its targets for nature recovery.

"Her alternative proposition is that there is sufficient evidence to suggest that 5th- and 6th-century Britain evolved through a process of adaptation and innovation from a late Roman base, not as a result of imported cultural practices imposed by Germanic elites on a subject people." Chris Catling reviews Susan Oosthuizen’s new book The Emergence of the English, which questions what we think we know about England after the Romans.

Alwyn Turner offers an episode-by-episode guide to Endeavour: "Written by Russell Lewis, it’s been an entertaining and witty show, with a great soundtrack and some jokey cultural references. It’s also provided a potted history of Britain between 1965 and 1972, when society wasn’t as decent and liberal as we are now."

Jim Perrin takes us to Llanfihangel Cefnllys in Powys - a remote church in a long-lost borough.