BBC SCOTLAND is not Scotland’s public broadcaster – it is the UK government’s broadcaster in Scotland.

While some of the licence fees paid by Scottish viewers are represented through local programming and employment, one does not have to be a sage to determine that, both politically and constitutionally, BBC Scotland does not represent the views of the Scottish public.

Regions across Europe have their own local broadcasting channels (Germany alone has 21 public TV channels) while in Scotland programming is effectively still controlled from London. The fact that a new report concludes that “the BBC meets its Scotland TV quota by using mostly London-based production companies” confirms this outrageous ‘external influence’.

This deplorable situation is not only an affront to true democracy: it is an insult to the talent and abilities at all levels within BBC Scotland as well as a cynical contempt of the Scottish public.

Many within the movement for self-determination, especially in recent times, have criticised the SNP leadership for being too respectfully polite and of ‘honourably’ attempting to play by rules that favour sustaining an inequitable union and the British Establishment.

Read more:

Certainly from the evidence of Debate Night, Question Time and Politics Live (on the very rare occasions that the fourth largest party in the UK is now invited to participate) this ‘honourable’ approach is not working in spite of John Swinney’s best efforts.

Perhaps the time has arrived for the SNP to follow The Guardian’s lead (in deciding to no longer post on ‘X’, formerly Twitter, due to repeated pernicious political slanting of content) and insist that all SNP parliamentarians boycott BBC news and current affairs programmes, including Reporting Scotland, until broadcasting is devolved to the Scottish Parliament. 

The partial broadcasting of the BBC, often without appropriate context, does not foster genuinely open, politically honest and objectively-balanced public debate (never mind employment opportunities commensurate with licence fees paid). Therefore, urgent action is now required by the SNP leadership to achieve this worthwhile goal and to hopefully aid the winning of the next election on the basis of the Scottish Parliament at least gaining the legal right to hold constitutional referenda following a supportive outcome in 2026.

Should that democratic right be refused by Westminster then the SNP must immediately declare the next General Election a ‘de facto referendum’ and exploit the declaration as a catalyst for raising support for self-determination well beyond fifty percent thus ensuring that Scotland will finally regain its independence.
Stan Grodynski, Longniddry, East Lothian.

 

Questions for Herald readers
AMONGST the big party rhetoric and infighting during last Thursday night’s Question Time, the Green Party representative asked why should the income of workers be taxed at a higher rate than personal investment income. Nobody on the panel answered this, and Fiona Bruce did not follow it up either. Can a Herald reader answer this question?
J.B.Drummond Kilmarnock.

* ANDY Maciver ("Are UK and Scotland ready for the nine-word culture war?", November 15) informs readers that he is a soft free-market capitalist liberal.

Answers on the back of a postcard, please.
David Miller, Milngavie.

 

Musk has much bigger fish to fry
MOST people would think that one of the world's richest men would have better things to do. But former First Minister Humza Yousaf has apparently claimed that Elon Musk has a team of people examining his Twitter/X communications.

I am not convinced of his claim, and fear that Mr Yousaf may have delusions of grandeur. At one point he said he was going to sue Musk but that quickly was dropped. Considering that the multi-billionaire Musk has a post in the new Trump cabinet, I suspect he has stratospherically bigger fish to fry than carrying out frantic searches on a washed-up minor politician in a region of the UK of whom he has likely heard no more than snatches of some of his past remarks. 
Alexander McKay, Edinburgh.

 

The Irish can do it. Why can't we?
ALTHOUGH not much reported here in Scotland, there is a general election in progress in neighbouring Ireland.

The Irish Times editorial last Wednesday opened with the following statement: “Ireland’s public finances are in rude good health. The budget is in surplus, spending is increasing and cash is being set aside in two new funds ... The State has had the wind at its back in economic terms since the middle of the last decade to an extraordinary degree”.

Just take a minute to let that statement of firmly established economic prosperity in Ireland (a country with a similar population and resource base to Scotland!) sink in, and then compare it with our own desperate search for economic growth and public spending/tax rises as the main theme in the recent UK general election.

In terms of highlighting Scotland’s current impoverished status (economically and politically), no further comment is required.
D. Jamieson, Dunbar, East Lothian.

 

Evidence-free rant of a pub bore
GUY Stenhouse ("Our Parliament has failed us. Here are three ways to fix it...", November 16)  makes a lot of sweeping charges against the Scottish government and Holyrood generally without any evidence. 

He dismisses Scotland’s public services, but Scotland’s NHS is performing better than England’s on many measures – A&E waiting times, the percentage of people with an NHS dentist, and the number of medics per head, for example.

There are some areas, no doubt, where England does better. It’s the same with transport: trains and ferries are cheaper in Scotland.

In education, Scotland’s score in PISA  on reading was virtually identical to England’s: there was half a percentage point of difference. Westminster has failings too – too many to mention here. I am sure there are areas where each country can learn from the other but Stenhouse’s article seems more like the fact-free ranting of a pub bore than quality journalism. 
Jackie Kemp, Leith, Edinburgh.

 

Reeves heading in wrong direction
RACHEL Reeves’s plan to merge 86 local government pension funds into a small number of mega-funds to promote growth brings to mind Ronald Reagan’s famous observation that the most frightening words in the English language are: "I am from the government, and I am here to help".

The Chancellor showed conclusively in the Budget that neither she nor her advisors understand the economy or how to promote growth. Nor is this unusual for Labour, as the party has a long history of economically ruinous policies all the way back to the post-Second World War nationalisations and the infamous Tanganyika groundnut scheme. Now we have Ed Miliband and Great British Energy demonstrating that they never learn.

Presumably on the Oxford University’s PPE course Reeves and Miliband didn’t learn about the economic miracle in the Thatcher years which turned Britain from the sick man of Europe into a model to be copied. Reeves needs to disabuse herself of the illusion that the way to economic growth is through more taxation, more regulation, more state control and further moves to ‘net zero’.

Instead, she needs to start doing precisely the opposite.
Otto Inglis, Crossgates, Fife.

 

Time to give Neil Gray a break
NEIL Gray’s use of ministerial limousines to attend six football matches as part of 347 official engagements is a storm in an egg cup, particularly as opposition spokespeople previously complained about ministers using more expensive taxis when official cars were available. 

Every use must be justified and approved in advance.  Encouraging participation in football and other sports is very much central to any health brief and the hard-working Gray is presiding over the best-performing health service in the UK with no strikes by medical staff and no local pharmacies closing due to the lack of funding unlike in England and Wales.

He has a very challenging job, particularly as the previous Westminster government slashed Scotland’s capital budget by 10% and our current block grant is worth £6.4bn less than in 2020/21, which puts Labour’s much-trumpeted £3.4bn extra funding into some sort of perspective. Particularly when the NI hike adds further pressure on our GPs, dentists, nurseries and care homes, on top of paying the highest energy bills in the UK thanks to a broken energy pricing system which discriminates against energy-rich Scotland.
Fraser Grant, Edinburgh.