The BBC is failing to hold the SNP to account
Nationalist politicians are treated with ridiculous courtesy by the British Broadcasting Corporation
It’s an infuriating prospect for most Scots to be asked again if they wish to remain British when it’s not even a decade since they voted decisively for exactly that. However, just as maddening is the prospect that the British Broadcasting Corporation will yet again maintain its deservedly poor reputation for failing to hold to account those who want to break up the UK.
If the evidence from the latest encounter between the Beeb’s flagship radio news programme and a senior nationalist – and on the day that Nicola Sturgeon sought again to take us towards her dream of Scottish independence – is anything to go by, that remains a concern.
It is one thing for people elsewhere in Britain to reckon that Scottish independence is not at the top of their list of priorities, and senior broadcasters do have to be jacks, and jills, of all trades, given the ferocious pace of the news agenda.
But that is not how Sturgeon’s Summer of Discontent, where she plans to parade her loathing of the UK, should necessarily be viewed in Broadcasting House.
Instead, the Scottish First Minister’s campaign should be seen for what it is – a ruthless attempt to get our national broadcaster to give her party its usual easy ride, as she seeks to dismantle the Union of Scotland, England, Wales and Northern Ireland against the wishes of the majority of Scotland, as freely expressed in a referendum only eight years ago.
There is nothing more important, surely, for our national broadcaster than the future of this nation. Thus, it is incumbent on the BBC in its network output to treat the threat of the break-up of Britain not as some remote regional affair, but as an important matter for every listener everywhere.
Sadly, it is clear that many senior BBC broadcasters and their M25-centric executives know little and care less about the issues for and against Scottish independence, with the result that nationalist politicians are treated with ridiculous courtesy.
Most presenters, especially on Radio 4’s Today programme, pride themselves on being so au fait with their subject matter that they can easily tie their Tory and Labour victims in knots. But with the SNP, it often sounds as if they’re interviewing foreign potentates, from faraway countries of which they know little, and whose views must be treated with undue deference.
It wasn’t quite that bad yesterday, yet Amol Rajan, on Today, interviewed a senior SNP figure with the air of someone who’d just been given a slip of paper with a few random facts about the Nats on it. Supposedly renowned in Beeb circles for his “sharp elbows”, Rajan asked a few desultory questions of Drew Hendry, an SNP trade spokesman, and accepted without further interrogation the answers he was given.
These included Mr Hendry’s suggestion that Scotland has a surplus of natural resources, in spite of the fact that Nicola Sturgeon and her coalition partner Patrick Harvie of the Greens want nothing now to do with North Sea oil; that Scotland has an “absolutely fantastic” food and drink hospitality sector, in spite of the fact that pub and restaurant owners have claimed that
Sturgeon’s prolonged Covid restrictions almost closed them down. Mr Hendry also said that a recent survey had ruled that Scotland was the “most educated” country in Europe. I’m not sure what that means, given that Ms Sturgeon has failed to close the attainment gap between the richest and poorest pupils.
He added that the SNP wished Scotland to be as wealthy as countries of a similar size, but his interrogator seemed not to know that this smacked of the SNP’S previous desire to join the “Arc of Prosperity” of nations like Iceland and Ireland. This became an “Arc of Insolvency” when many such countries suffered in the subsequent financial crash.
By way of comparison, Alister Jack, the Scottish Secretary, yesterday published a comprehensive list of the phenomenal benefits Scotland derives from being part of the UK. Can we look forward to hearing him on the Today programme one day soon?
Ms Sturgeon mustn’t be allowed the freedom of the airwaves this summer with her phoney war on how she plans to circumvent Boris Johnson’s refusal to grant the necessary permission for Indyref2. As our national broadcaster, the BBC should of course let us hear her claims. But she must be held to account at every turn.