I agree wholeheartedly with ED v. Honest Johns contributions do seem to be diluted by other contributors, who unlike him prefer to sit on the fence when deciding between marques.Also they do not deal with questions from the general motoring public who buy their own cars.

We are all much better informed due to HJ's pioneering approach and we should all be grateful for the progress he has made in Motoring Jounalism.

I subscibe to the Telegraph mainly to support HJ. But I understand that they have reduced the time he can spend on the columm. Apparenly a team of editors decide which letters are printed so we only see a fraction of the enquiries he receives.

The only way we are going to see things returned to the Motoring Section we enjoyed 10 years ago is to write to the editor of the paper asking for the balance to be returned to the HJ style of motoring jounalism.

"Apparently the DT owners are keen to make money and, as circulations fall for most newspapers, cost cutting is rife."

Every business, not least newspaper owners, are keen to make money - that's why they're in business. But too often directors think in terms of short-term gain, and getting rid of good journalists and popular features is hardly the way to increase circulation. Indeed - like television, dumbing down is the order of the day. The same (getting rid of good experienced staff) happened at my Dad's firm 20 years ago [he took early retirement in his early 50s on a very nice settlement package] as a cost-cutting measure from 'management consultants [to be honest, just doing what the firm's top brass wanted] - they ended up losing huge amounts of business to rivals [they'd been a steady but unspectacular firm for many years, but had a great reputation amongst industry insiders and clients] and were bought out only a few years later by, yes you've guessed it, a foreign firm, who are far less regarded in their field. Sad to say I can see the DT evtnually dying off once all the only 'readers' left are the trolls on the comments sections.

I couldn't get my usual Times one day last week (on holiday in Scotland) and the Telegraph seemed a poor substitute. Subjectively there seemed much less of interest than last time I read the Telegraph. Quite a difference in cost between subscribing to the Telegraph and Times, but if it brings better quality journalism, then its probably worth paying the extra. Prices have gone up a lot at the Telegraph in recent years - I only paid £40 for the website-only access at first (only a couple of years ago), now £75 pa (Times £2 pw / £104 pa).

Maybe HJ should try and move over to The Times if the Telegraph has sidelined his collumn.

The newspapers seem to be ‘retiring’ their experienced staff and dumbing down; such as relying more on spell checkers and less on proof reading editors.

Do the BRs think that journalism has also become poor across the motoring press ? A recent edition of the Auto Express had an article comparing the Skoda Superb with the Subaru Outback. One of the BRs wrote not too long ago that the rating given to a car related to the advertising revenue from the maker. The Skoda came out top and the reasons given were specious to the normal reader, eg, the Subaru had dated features, the styling was wrong, the touch screen got finger marks etc. A recent edition of the Top Gear magazine had solo reports on the two cars, on facing pages so it was easy to compare the comments. Both cars got an overall rating of 8, which is high for that magazine. What shows that the writer is young and inexperienced is the comment that the Subaru has ‘squidgey’ tyres that make the ride more comfortable. It’s as if the writer has the idea that the hard rubber strip tyres are the real norm instead of a styling feature.