‘Reverential’ reports that airbrushed SNP’s failings from airwaves

■ Mr BONNINGTON highlighted a series of examples of alleged bias, including coverage of opposition claims that the NHS in Scotland had reached crisis point because of a ‘complete lack of planning’ during the pandemic.

On February 7, both the BBC UK News website and the BBC Scotland website gave the story prominence in the afternoon but there was ‘absolutely no coverage of this’ on Reporting Scotland, or on BBC network TV news.

In his complaint to the BBC, Mr Bonnington said: ‘On the face of it, this seems an amazing turnaround in the BBC’s view of the importance of this story.’

Responding to Mr Bonnington, the BBC said: ‘Not everything we carry is an onthe-day story out of a diary… but may be our development of a running story which adds news value in its own right: in the case of online, it was the NHS story, and in the case of Reporting Scotland, it was a comprehensive cost of living story compiled by our business and economy editor, Douglas Fraser.’

■ Mr BONNINGTON also drew attention to coverage on February 3 of the Scottish Government’s bizarre proposal to saw off the bottom part of classroom doors in schools, to try to boost ventilation and limit the spread of Covid.

He said the BBC had given ‘full coverage of First Minister’s Questions’, focusing on

Nicola Sturgeon’s ‘outrage that the other parties had suggested that her idea was plain daft’.

In response, the BBC’s complaints team said: ‘The judgment of the production team that day was that the news value of [other] stories was greater than the “doors” story, which was at that point not actually a new story.’

■ THE lawyer also highlighted SNP Commons leader Ian Blackford being ordered out of the Commons chamber earlier this year, though the MP left before he could be ejected after accusing Boris Johnson of being a ‘liar’ who misled the house over Downing Street parties during lockdown.

Mr Bonnington said there was no coverage of criticism of the Nationalist MP and ‘instead the following day they reported in reverential terms the question Ian Blackford had asked on that day’.

Responding to his claim, the BBC said: ‘We have obligations under our Charter responsibility for impartiality, our Editorial Guidelines and the Ofcom Broadcasting Code to set forth the facts and the arguments and provide evidential context for our audience to reach their own conclusions.’

It said it could ‘see nothing in the parallel teatime edition [the following day] which equates to [Mr Bonnington’s] claims’.