The BBC charter has been renewed, and now BBC Scotland is going to stop being a branch office of the Union. It will accurately reflect the fact that half of the population want independence and will be independent of London and wholly controlled and funded within Scotland. In other news, Ruth Davidson has admitted that her party came a very distant second in last week’s election and she doesn’t have any power to do anything, least of all block a second independence referendum, Kezia Dugdale took the pledge of allegiance and added a caveat swearing blind that she’d never say SNP bad ever again, and Wullie Rennie has been taken seriously.
It turns out that very little will change now that the BBC charter has been renewed. Despite the Tory culture secretary’s claim that the BBC will become more accountable to the devolved nations, it’s a long way short of giving Scotland what every other self governing nation in Europe outside the UK has, its own national broadcasting channel. As long as Scotland is without its own national public broadcaster, the claims of the Unionists that Scotland has the most powerful devolved parliament in the world are meaningless.
As this blog is forever pointing out, Catalonia has five TV channels of its own including a 24 hour news channel. Scotland gets 30 minutes of murrdurr, fitba and wee cute kittens after the news where we aren’t. Even tiny Gagauzia, a self governing territory in Moldova, with its 150,000 people is capable of sustaining a national broadcaster yet it’s one of the poorest parts of the poorest country in Europe. The Faroe Islands with their 49,000 population have a national broadcaster too, as does Greenland with its 56,000 people.
The only reason Scotland with its rich culture and economy and 5 million people doesn’t have its own national broadcaster is because Westminster is terrified of the idea of a public broadcaster that it doesn’t control. It’s got nothing to do with Scotland’s ability to run a public broadcaster, of course Scotland has the wealth of talent and skills. It’s got everything to do with politics. The real reason that Westminster won’t allow Scotland to have its own public broadcaster is because it was control of the airwaves that won it the last independence referendum. It’s as simple and as cynical as that.
We’re now promised that Scotland is going to become a BBC centre of excellence. Whatever that means. What it doesn’t mean is that Scotland will get a national broadcaster that will accurately reflect the range of opinions and views in this country. What it might just mean is a tacit admission from the BBC that BBC Scotland has been anything but excellent up until now. However BBC Scotland becoming a centre of excellence most likely means that we’ll get pedigree kittens and those nice middle class murrdurrs with posh people killing one another terribly politely like you get on Midsomer Murders. The fitba will still be rubbish though, this is Scotland after all.
The biggest change is that the BBC Trust made up of middle class British nationalist appointees who are not democratically accountable is to be abolished and replaced by a board made up of middle class British nationalist appointees who are not democratically accountable. You’ll still get Strictly, those inane game shows involving people in lycra throwing themselves at inflatable bouncy castles floating in a pond, and lots and lots of royalist sycophancy. There will still be lots of programmes with Great British in the title, trying to make out that everything from pottery to sewing is somehow uniquely British. Because they don’t make china in China, and haut couture is really based in Swindon. And if you’re a politics junkie, don’t worry, you’ll also still get Question Time and David Dimbleby being sneery about independence supporters.
You can also be certain that another thing that won’t change is the utter inadequacy of the BBC’s stonewalling policy, otherwise known as its complaints department. The BBC doesn’t respond to complaints as its definition of impartiality is when it gets complaints from everyone. Complaining to the BBC is the very definition of futility. In many billions of years, when dark energy has stretched out the universe into infinite nothingness, there will still be people waiting for an adequate response to their complaint that BBC Question Time is as reflective of Scottish opinion as a UKIP party meeting in Kent. The BBC doesn’t care, because it doesn’t have to. Their complaints department consists of a brick wall for you to bang your head off of.
Criticisms have been made that the Tory government intends to appoint almost half of the new board members directly and that this is a threat to the independence and impartiality of the corporation. I’d be a whole lot more worried about the independence and impartiality of the BBC if it was actually independent and impartial, but from the perspective of an independence supporter in Scotland, the BBC is the propaganda arm of the British state. That’s not about to change either.
What will change is that the licence fee will be imposed on people who watch TV online. So there can be no escape from the British propaganda tax. We might get a few sops thrown our way, like a Scottish Six. But unless there’s a root and branch overhaul of how the BBC is structured and the licence fees paid by Scots remain in Scotland, what we’re likely to end up with is a glorified version of Reporting Scotland or the replacement to Scottish Newsnight that no one watches.
As long as we have a BBC that’s controlled outside of Scotland it’s going to be force-feeding us a British agenda and will treat the independence movement as the enemy without. It’s licenced to shill for the British state. A corporation that sees itself as the voice of Britain and the sustainer of British identity is institutionally incapable of dealing with a democratic movement that rejects Britishness and defines itself as Scottish. That’s why Scotland needs a public broadcaster that reflects Scotland, not one whose goal is to impose a British identity on us all. The point of a public broadcaster ought to be to give a platform to the voices in a nation, not to shape its debates in a particular direction. Scotland isn’t going to get that as long as we remain a part of the UK. In the UK we’re always going to have the voice of Britishness telling us what Scottishness is supposed to be, and a Scottish population that increasingly treats the BBC like the BBC complaints department treats complainers, as something to be ignored.
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Must be getting old, sleepless and toddling roond the hoose in the wee sma hours. 🙂
Great dissection Paul and couldn’t agree more. I don’t think their conclusions come as much of a surprise and TBH, given the nature of the beast, there wasn’t a snowball’s chance that any other decision was ever going to be reached.
The state is falling apart under the weight of its own broken, top down governance. There are only a few institutions capable of maintaining its existence in the short to medium term and control of the airwaves is one of those few remaining levers. Control the message, control the population. So looking forward to more great British… bake off, history, homes, coast, war stories, news (cough) etc., etc. They need absolute oversight of a state broadcaster very badly about now. Even with that competence fully within their remit they’re only slowing down the process of the dissolution of the treaty, they can’t stop it happening, not as they are. Its not in their nature to change.
The UK, the union of parliaments has had its day. Its had its fifteen minutes of fame and its page in the history books. Its no longer a fit entity for the 21st century, its in decline and has been so since before the second world war. It was only a tenuously viable entity so long as empire grew. Its foundation is rotten and works on a premise unsuited to the disparate cultures which make up the entity. The elitist system, the establishment and order upon which it is based is the very thing which will bring about its end. Greed, hatred, fear, aggressive expansion can only take you so far and by its very nature sows the seeds of its own demise.
The populations of our countries are educated and they do have access to varied forms of information gathering and communication. The mystique and the awe of the establishment is almost no more. Downton abbey was yesterday and today Its world is on the decline, so increasingly there is no deference, no cap doffing, no forelock tugging. People today ask more questions, demand more respect as one human being to another. They aren’t content to sit back and just take what they’re given from their ‘betters’. They have needs and aspirations and want to know why they should pay for governments greed and its mistakes many times over when they should pay only once to have that government care for those needs effectively.
In short, people are today aware that however many bools ye huv in yer mooth, yer average nob pulls their pants on one leg at a time just like us. All the sense of superiority and entitlement in the world doesn’t mean you’re entitled to anything, least of all our deference or our respect. That needs to be earned.
They can have their state broadcaster. Its not going to prevent what needs to happen from happening anyway.
A good comment, Macart. But …
I only wonder just how many people really do take the time to question, doubt, dispute, inquire, seek their own answers, and otherwise suspect the messages that gets pumped into most of the households in Scotland and creates the background propaganda that too many people STILL believe and only 18 months ago resulted in Scots thinking that Scotland (their country – allegedly) was a basket case and needed the ‘broad shoulders’ of Westminster’s’ incompetent governance.
I am sure that there ARE many more who do these things, but far too many still seem content to accept their lot, and look to the BBC propaganda service to support their world view. Change is still frightening, and the BBC is the mouthpiece of an Establishment that wants to keep ‘fear’ (i.e. Do Not Change – you WILL regret it PERSONALLY!!!) at the top of its agenda.
I know I shouldn’t do this, but it seems that Geobbels’ propaganda model is the BBC prime directive. Rather than his most often quoted statement, try this one:
“It would not be impossible to prove with sufficient repetition and a psychological understanding of the people concerned that a square is in fact a circle. They are mere words, and words can be molded until they clothe ideas and disguise”
Still not yet quite enough Tony, but every day, month and year a few more. The end result is pretty much inevitable, the only thing in doubt is the precise timing and in what manner.
That Geobbels fella was of course right in his theory of mass manipulation but he forgot something which Lincoln did not:
“You can fool all the people some of the time, and some of the people all the time, but you cannot fool all the people all the time.”
You tell enough lies, no matter how big, they ultimately collapse upon and destroy their creator. Lincoln knew that eventually all truth will out. This is what we are seeing today, a system collapsing under the weight of its own mythology and rot. This system of government can’t hide what it is for anymore and the establishment can’t hide what they are anymore. They’re just greedy people with a hole where their conscience should be and a delusional sense of superiority and entitlement.
Right on song macart. Bravo.
The Italians have a great saying ‘tutti i nodi vengono al pettine’, meaning, that all knots come to the comb.
I hope I got my Italian correct.
Hello Macart- you are a frequent poster and I always enjoy reading them, but… where is the evidence for your claims? I wish that what you say is true, but I see no sign of any change whatsoever in the BBC’s (or the MSM’s in general) attitude to Scotland. In fact, i would say that since Indyref, the bias is even more evident. Thanks to John Robertson over on Newsnet for itemising and quantifying the examples.
I never claimed any change of attitude from the BBC Brian. In fact, if anything I wholeheartedly agree with you. I’d say the Beeb and the rest of the media are every bit as biased as they’ve always been.
Are you sure you’ve read my post correctly?
O/T Macart do you still have the link to the Ponsonby/Dugdale interview? I can’t find it anywhere.
Here you go Rab.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eZHByKtFon8
Cheers mate; to call that a car crash would be a massive understatement – how many times did BP have to ask if Dugdale would’ve signed the Claim of Right?
Aye, it was a beezer right enough. As for the Claim of Right? For ANY Scottish politician, he should only need to ask once.
I feel that the increasing pain of the working class, the lessening of the crumbs and bones thrown to them from the capitalist table has eroded the mystique and awe of the cap doffing public of the establishment. Capitalism cannot reform itself in order to stop it’s own destruction and dies in it’s own poisons.
I liked what you had to say Wolfman Macart. I’ll tug my forelock to the dug as well.
Ah but Gagauzia, Greenland and Catalonia don’t have their own wee pretendy fitba and rugby teams whose “legends” then tell them that they’re too useless to govern themselves. (Plus giving Britsh nationalists in Scotland an hour and a half to kid on we are a country on the same basis as Norway or Ireland etc).
Given a choice, I’d rather have Gagauzian tellly.
Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union had their, and North Korea has, its own national broadcaster. We have the BBC. It’s in the nature of “The Establishment” to always seek to control the MSM, to influence, direct or dictate news and political messages. In the past, people used broadsides, pamphlets, underground newspapers, pirate broadcasts, samizdat to counteract this – now we have the internet. The BBC is of diminishing importance today and I sometimes wonder how influential it really is: I suspect the “Bake Off”, etc., fans don’t bother much with “Question Time”, political programmes or even the news. What we all need is less of the BBC and more of the WGD and his like. Eventually, the truth will out.
Seconded and carried unanimously – the last sentence obviously.
Thirded. Even more unanimous.
TBF, I treat the Beeb the same way as SLAB. Ignore them, and don’t engage. SLAB’s disintegration is what happens as a result. The BBC are on their way to the same fate one way or another.
I wonder if there is any legal reason why the SNP cannot not start a Scottish National Broadcaster?
It may be a reserved matter, but there appears to be no legal blockage – the Scots Government could support a community interest company to do anything it wants really.
The very act of simply checking out the legal situation on this would send shock waves though the EBC.
I was having the same thought myself. Maybe starting with pirate broadcasting as a provocation to the British state could be a start. No idea what the technical issues would be.
The issue is that to do it legally, they’d have to rent bandwidth from OfCom. And as that’s a British Unionist organisation, I doubt they’d get approval. OfCom has the authority to “just say no” to anything they like, probably with a complaints procedure similar to the BBC’s in terms of actually getting decisions changed.
And there’s no way in a million years I could see the SNP doing a pirate station. They’re far to much a “work within the system” group for that.
Pirate TV’s main stumbling block is needing an offshore broadcasting antennae with enough power to not only reach the whole of Scotland, but to override the “official” channels. Has to be offshore, because finding the broadcast location is trivial, so the only way to not get shut down the OfCom calling in the army is to work outside the UK’s jurisdiction.
Basically, you’d need a few old oil rigs, and some *serious* broadcast power, and probably a non-UK source of food/power supplies.
I’m also not sure how easy it is to override modern digital broadcasts on an individual channel. Old style analogue ones weren’t too hard, you just needed to generate a more powerful signal at point of reception, but modern digital signals have a whole bunch of fancy codings to make transmission avoid interference better, so I’m not sure how easy it is anymore.
Ah, but Jack and Victor’s back at the BBC to do a new series of Still Game! That should turn the tide around – Scottish Labour’s decline really started in 2007, when Still Game’s last series went out.
Heh heh.
“The BBC charter has been renewed”.
Is this true Paul or Did you hear it on the BBC?
And was Verbal telling the truth to the Federal Agents in ‘The Usual Suspects’? Perhaps Kaisar Sozi is not dead?
‘Usual Suspects II’ any day now?
‘The news where we are’, comes to mind, SA.
We all need to start demanding our own independent national channel from the Scottish Govt.
Without demand, it ain’t going to happen.
This the correct answer. This must happen before the next referendum.
Your blogs always make me smile or laugh, but I usually also feel rage at the injustices which you skewer with your nib.
The BBC is the main thing stopping independence and for that reason we’ll never get real broadcasting in this country. A diminishing band still buy the Dead Tree Scrolls in JC’s marvellous phrase, but most people know papers print rubbish and they only buy them for the listings/sudoku/fitba. But how many times have we heard the phrase on the doorstep, “You’re wrong, I heard it on the BBC!”?
Of course, from the cradle to the grave we are bombarded with its claim that it is the trustiest, most impartialest and totally wonderful institution in the whole world but unless more people finally have their Nick Robinson-style epiphany, when they suddenly see what the BBC is really up to, they will keep swallowing its pap.
I had the misfortune of listening to the Media Show with Steve Hewlett yesterday: a parallel universe where they talk about scrutiny, oversight, maintaining the principles of the charter, etc., all utter self-regarding merde de boeuf but it maintains the illusion of Reithian Rigour and most punters fall for it.
Tony L’s Goebbels quotation could really have been spoken by O’Brien in 1984, but then people forget Orwell was talking as much about The BBC as he was about the Soviet State. He worked there in WW2 and knew very well what they were up to. It’s just today, we, not the Nazis, are the enemy, and it will do what it has to to thwart us.
The Big Question remains: what can be done about it?
“Licensed to shill”: loved that.
I loved “Licensed to shill” too – or maybe “licensed to shrill” sometimes…
Well said Tinto.
Wish STV would bite the bullet and produce a Scottish 6. They already produce a Scottish News half-hour at six: why not a full hour with opt-ins from the main ITV channel after 6.30?
STV News has a more vibrant format, better presenters and more astute, less biased commenters.
STV had a far better and more professional coverage of the Scottish elections too. Graphics, explanations and discussion were much superior and Ponsonby was on the ball.
The bbc continues to air britnat propaganda precisely because it knows it has lost the respect of at least half of the population of Scotland; it is protecting, or trying to protect, what’s left of its britnat watchers in Scotland.
http://the-bonny-badge-company.myshopify.com/products/38mm-badge-is-that-true-or-did-you-hear-it-on-the-bbc
Thanks, Dan. Badge ordered.
No TV in my house but BBC say they’re coming to search! Looking forward to reading them passages from GA Ponsonby’s book “London Calling – How the BBC stole the Referendum – BBC BIAS”. And soon I’ll have a badge to give them. “Is that true or did you hear it on the BBC?” Do hope they manage to make their way here…… so far from home.
Thanks Brian.
I’ve got my badge which I proudly wear.
It provokes plenty of discussion.
Thanks Dan – not Brian. Don’t know where Brian came from.
There are two of me and the other one was doing the thinking.
Every now and again, the landlord of our local watering hole decides that he wants to add a bit of sophistication to the place, encourage a better class of clientele, to entice a band of intellectual worthies into our humble bolt hole whose badinage extends beyond fixed odds coupons, and the treacherous temptation of the £2.00 a pint Mon-Thursday offer across the road in the Snooker Hall. Figure it.
And so we have a Quiz Night.
I gather that there are quiz freaks who wander the land taking part in such nights. Librarians and English teachers who nurse a can of diet Irn Bru and a bag of Cheese ‘n’ Onion all night, easily seeing off us local thick bozos, and walking away with the prizes, o half dozen cans of lager, or brewery key rings. I’m sure my enthusiasm is oozing out of the page.
Now I admit to having a misspent adulthood.
I have never seen EastEnders.
I’m sure Terry Wogan was everything they say he was; the broadcaster’s broadcaster.
I’ll whisper this. I’ve never watched any show in which he appeared, nor listened to his apparent legendary radio shows.
I’ve never seen any of the Great British Bore Offs, or watched the seemingly endless series of Home Counties Wimp Father/ Mouther Courage Wife Sit Coms..
Same applies to Boy Bands and Girls Bands. Haven’t a clue.
I’m glad that I’ve got that off my chest, at last.
I used to think that I was in a minority.
I do not know who shot JR either.
So when it comes to being picked for a Quiz Team, my fellow lounge lizards know that I am the equivalent of Piltdown Man.
I’m there to get the drinks in, and perhaps answer a question on Hemingway, or Wayne Fontana and the Mindbenders.
I used to think that I was in the minority. That you’re all glued to EastEnders, Corrie, Strictly, and Dr Who.
I’ve just looked up some of the viewing figures. Apparently about fifty million of us are not glued to our sets watching somebody bake a cake.
The BBC is not as important as it is made out to be.
Most of us are not watching; we have chosen to go elsewhere.
Their current affairs, news, and political programmes are of course hegemony on acid. It is the Establishment Broadcaster, just as the Westminster Parliament is the Political wing of the Establishment. The BBC reflects the views of the Masters of the Universe.
It doesn’t matter how they rearrange the chairs in the Board Room.
It is the principal communications tool of the Holy London Empire.
BBC Scotland is, and will continue to be, one up the food chain from Skype.
An outpost, an afterthought, a sop to the Northerners.
We will spend the summer living every English Test over, following the fortunes of ‘our boys’, the English Football Team, and celebrate the School Holidays beginning in the first fortnight in August, when kids Up Here are getting kitted out with school uniforms for the new academic year.
Nothing will change until Independence.
Nobody in London cares what 5 million in the Northern Territory think.
And frankly, I am past caring too.
‘The Medium is the message’. (well if you lot can chuck quotes about so can I.) Who said that?
You said it, just there, Jack.
Like you I am past caring about what the Deep South thinks.
Independence is the main prize, unless, of course, there is one for identifying the author of the quote.
I have a wee confession to make, Saor. I quite enjoy a wee quiz. Ours usually end in riots because of some unscrupulous Google and Shazam cheats.
Folk suddenly develop weak bladders and disappear to the loo a lot.
The prize for identifying the author?
An ‘I’m with Ruthie’, key ring.
Seriously, why are we bothering about BBC Scotland? Does anybody really watch Scotland 2016 any more?
If Eleanor Bradford were wandering about my ward as I waited for major surgery, I’d know my number was up. She’s never around when there’s good news to be had about the Scottish Health Service.
Gordon Brewer is fast becoming a cartoon caricature of himself. ‘Hang on a minute , just to be sure’.
The comments here, all heart felt, cogent and to the point will not fall on deaf ears. They serve as positive reinforcers to the Broadcast Guardians of the Union Up Here that the tide is still being stemmed.
Pacific Quay probably faxes our comments back to the Death Star, and gets a gold star on its annual report for holding the line Up Here.
Oh for a ‘Yes First Minister’ satire series.
I’ll pass on the “I’m with Ruthie” key ring prize Jack and just hold out for the greater prize.
I haven’t watched the British Bullshit Corporation for 2 years now and have no intention of ever doing so again.
@Jack it was Marshall McLuhan. Pioneer of media studies and visionary who envisaged the Internet and web decades before it became a reality.
Well done, Bill. As revealed in my aside with Saor Alba above, you win the prize:
An ‘I’m with Ruthie’ key ring.
Send your name and address on a stamped envelope, and a postal order for £1500 to ‘Ruth Davidson Towers’, ….to receive this hand crafted collector’s item.
PS. Worry not, Saor. There are 5000 key rings left for lucky runners up, or as they are known Up Here, Tory List MSP’s.
Send Bill the key ring Jack. I’m not that fussed about it really.
high5..u d’man
I so wanted that to be, ‘wullie rennie has seriously been taken’, away!
Middle class polite murrrdurrs, excellent!
I don’t suppose the UN, or EU have a clause whereby a country has a right to self representation over the airwaves at all. Just imagine, if a brexit, and no human rights act, the unionist establishment I am sure will consider locking up Nicola Sturgeon in the tower, forever and key thrown away, so it could be much worse.
Why and how on earth did we ever get to this, where as a country of 5m people, we can’t have our own independent broadcaster! It is just ridiculous that westmonster can dictate this. Where was it written into the so called act of union? Which so called law says we cannot have our independent tv station?
Can we crowd fund one? Seriously, when you really think about it, we should be out on the streets in mass protest at the injustice of this. Thing is, the masses are sotting watching the news where you are, and the great british fck off to be bothered by such trivialities and it’s all about the ‘nationalists’ wanting control eh.
My no voting friends, well, no longer friends, said at the end of last year that they have ditched the bbc, bit late and I am sure they will still hate the SNP and vote no next time. Maybe they just wanted to save a few quid and got fed up of the bbc pap that is piped into living rooms, day in day out.
As a last note, I spent time in NZ in the early 90s, I could not believe how dreadful their television was, every channel piping utter mind numbing dross into peoples living rooms. About 10 years later, the same happened to UKok tv, it’s been downhill ever since.
I agree hetty. TV is the modern drug of the masses. It leaves the mind befuddled.
It takes people away from the reality of the massive credit card debts and loan debts which pile up due to the corruption and neglect from the banks. The U.K. government protects the banks because the banks protect the UK Government’s interests, which is to control the people. Controlling the people means impoverishing them. This is why they will not want us to have control of our own airwaves. Their propaganda is needed to keep the poor down.
TV gives folk a little comfort and belief for a short while in what is, in many cases, an uncomfortable existence, but mostly they are trapped and therefore feel useless. This is why they watch Strictly and East Enders. TV is control of the masses, who become lazy in thought and unable to act.
We need rid of the UK Government and the Union.
In an Independent Scotland we need airwaves that serve to report fairly and truly enlighten all of our people. This will encourage the development of a fairer Scotland, where a true democracy can be established. Not the pretendy democracy that the UK thinks it has.
Sorry for going on at length hetty.
I need to sit back for a minute, before I get too worked up.
meant sitting, but sotting must be in a dictionary somewhere!
That made me chuckle, hettyforindy. ” Sot” means someone who drinks too much but if we could make it into a noun as in ” to sot” then your scenario of the audience ” sotting watching the news ” sounds like the only way to watch it.
Apologies. Should have said ‘if we could make it into a VERB.’ of course.
Excellent comments. Scotland is of no real importance to Westminster except for the very large matter of Trident. Bairns not bombs is of no interest to the elite controlling the military.
I totally object to children in Scotland being so invisible to those who decide our beloved children’s fate with nuclear weapons.
Trident is a crucial issue to the people in Scotland. The BBC retains a silence on this issue. Trident is up for renewal soon. They have already spent a few billion on initial renewal stage. Not a peep from the BBC. Bread and circuses rule ok!
And we’re getting the nuclear powered attack subs Up Here from 2017, Albawoman. They never think of themselves ,do they?
Well, if there’s a wee ‘oopsa, daisy’, then the melt down will be in a ‘relatively remote area’ of the UK, ahem, Scotland.
It’s all to do with ‘pooling and sharing’. It’s a bit complicated for a woman. Ask yer husband when you’re making his dinner tonight.
Oh I do think things will change, er, for the worse. More of Harry Lauder, the Krankies, and every Scottish cringe subject they can find, an ongoing barrage of how useless we are.
Of course that will be also littered with how good Britishness is,, how great we are together, how we ruled the Empire together. They will push the to the third dimension just how much we depend on their kindness.to just survive, and that is all they will allow.
All that shite is coming down the line, and we can do nothing about it. We had a chance too, but failed. Beaten by state propaganda.
New rules will certainly be tailored for the separate nations, in Scotland’s case, how much more can we take.
The White Heather Club deserves to be brought back about the same time the BBC also bring back the Black and White Minstrels.
I listened to the Big Debate on Radio Heedrum Hodrum this lunch time. Maybe I am getting paranoic but the estimable Joanna Cherry had to defend her case against 4 Unionists, including Brewer, who proceeded to interrupt her on every occasion and took no account of the Unionist bias on the panel. She did very well and I have congratulated her on her robust defence of the Indy case.
I also want to say this in the nicest possible way, but I am getting sick and tired of incomers venting forth on the Referendum and SNPBad. We clearly have a problem in the South of Scotland where all the Home Counties types revert to type by voting Tory on an anti-independence ticket. Having lived and worked in Lancashire and Derbyshire for many years, as a Scot, I would never have dreamed of putting my head above the parapet to support any political position at national or local level because, as a guest, I thought it was presumptious to tread on local feeling.
Let’s have a bit of humility from these types.
Well, Bill, you’ll know better the next time. BBC Radio Jordanhill.’If your au pair had to rush back to Latvia for a family emergency, could you cook a meal for the week end dinner party?’
‘Cal us on 0800.’
Is anybody listening? really? I gather that WoS tried to get listener and viewer figures for BBC Scotland’s News and Current Affairs offerings. The computer said No.
Wonder why?
‘The Big Debate’? The cleaner, her cat, and the doorman?
BBC centre for excellence.
Ooh looky, more utter crapspeak. Like that time Cameron said he had a ‘respect agenda’ towards Scotland. That phrase still makes me want to laugh uncontrollably, throw up everywhere and disembowel the nearest Tory with a spoon, all at the same time.
Good grief. Can we just please start our own state broadcasting network, instead of endlessly talking about how it should be done. PLEASE?!?!?!
As far as the UK media is concerned. This includes print as well as the BBC. I left the room years ago. The only time I am aware of their behavior is reading blogs like this. You know I have never heard Corbyn speak? You what else? I don’t care what he has to say. The actions of his party tell me more than any speech he could deliver. Now it may very well be a subjective judgement – but subjectively, for me, the BBC are a pish merchant. Don’t care what they promise to be – for now I ain’t listening.
Mr Corbyn is, I understand, very much on the left of his party and by all accounts was very much the rebel in his time David. He opposes nuclear weapons, has something of a social conscience and commands, at least, the respect of the membership and a great deal of Labour voters on the ground in England.
That being said, his Labour politics extends as far as the M25 ring road. He has no feel for constitutional issues, or the nature of the union, has very little in the way of leadership qualities and stood by his party’s crimes and depredations for decades through thick and thin. I wish him well in his attempts to reform politics in England, though I have very great doubts he’ll succeed given the nature of the opposition both within and without his own party.
Worth noting on the downside however, that over all of that long period in representation he held his loyalty to the party and its varied ideologies, yes? As a parliamentarian of such long standing, it seems inconceivable that he had no knowledge of the criminal policies, the clusterfudges and the naked manipulation employed in Westminster politics.
He is, who and what he is, a metro centred socialist from the geographical heart of the UKs governance. Its where his heart is, where his experience has been and where his focus is centred. As I say, I wish him luck in his future endeavours, but his future and ours are two ultimately diverging paths.
A very subtle and accurate observation, Macart.
Corbyn is doubtless a ‘socialist’ in the academic sense; he’s a London boy as well.
Scotland is an unchartered region in his mind map; ‘There be Haggis’
Of that, there is no doubt.
A leader he is not.