SNP must keep its hands off the BBC
THIS newspaper has no truck with the BBC’s Left-wing leanings and fixation with the soggy consensus politics of the chattering classes. But as Euan McColm argues persuasively on page 9, there is an enormous gulf between a newspaper making its position clear and a government trying to gerrymander the broadcaster to suit its own ends.
The SNP’s official policy paper on the BBC Charter renewal – the post-referendum Smith agreement on more powers for Holyrood includes a consultative role for the Scottish Government – looks very like a stick with which to beat the broadcaster and cow it into submission.
Of course, there is no love lost between the SNP and the BBC. Alex Salmond was to the fore with claims that coverage of the i ndependence referendum was skewed. He also hailed a baying mob laying siege to BBC Scotland’s Glasgow HQ – demanding the sacking of then political editor Nick Robinson – as ‘joyous’.
Journalists asking searching, pertinent questions are a prerequisite for a truly democratic society and they should not face intimidation when doing so. Mob rule is anything but ‘joyous’.
Against that backdrop, the SNP desire for a so-called Scottish Six news looks less like a drive to improve the lot of viewers than to provide maximum coverage for the Scottish Government.
The Nationalist ploy has always been to create as much difference as possible between Scotland and England so that in the longer term the countries will drift apart and the journey into the unknown of independence will feel less of a leap.
Similarly, demands for all the money raised by the BBC in Scotland to be controlled here feel like a precursor to the launch of the Scottish Broadcasting Corporation after independence. Perhaps there i s an argument for increased Gaelic output although, as columnist Siobhan Synnot argued in this newspaper on Monday, BBC Alba’s ambitions really ought to extend beyond transmitting sheepdog trials.
Similarly, do Scots really want their main evening news bulletin to focus entirely on Scotland? Have we overnight become an inward-looking, isolated and timid people?
Rather, this is a separatist canard to reinforce their contention that Scots are so very different from our English neighbours that we would be better off apart.
After their referendum defeat, the Nationalist narrative was that they were robbed by a hostile media, that the public simply didn’t get to hear their glorious message.
The reality is that the fundamental failure of their economic argument did much more damage. And now we must protect the BBC – flaws and all – from a shameless bid to convert it into a relentless cheerleader for separatism.