Scottish nationalist discontent at the BBC is never far from the surface.
In one sense, it’s no more than a long tradition of people detecting bias in the media when an apparently adverse editorial judgement is made about news of the one thing that really obsesses them.
Opposition supporters complain about bias or deference towards the government, government supporters believe the opposition gets too much coverage, environmentalists believe the media don’t treat climate change seriously enough, climate change deniers rail at the air-time given to the environmentalists, and so on and so on. Curiously, the partisans in any one topic rarely express concern about bias in how the media cover any other area of human activity.
So it is with Scottish nationalists and especially the BBC. Here’s today’s manifestation of this particular grievance:
You’ll observe that the complainant in this instance is not just some random social media warrior but Angus Robertson, former depute party leader and leader of the SNP group in the Commons. He is currently keeping his hand in with politics through his latest venture, Progress Scotland, a ‘think tank’ I touched on in a recent post.
The item on BBC Radio 4 he complains of is a daily summary of the main news items in the UK national press, all of whose newspapers are of course edited from London, our national capital.
The concept of London as our national capital inflames many nationalists, just as they are inflamed by the very notion of a ‘B’BC, the clue of course being in that first B – the British Broadcasting Corporation. The very institution is a manifestation – a very successful one – of Britishness. This is why the SNP have at various times argued for the devolution of broadcasting regulation to the Scottish parliament. The control of cultural life is as important to nationalists as control of the economy, indeed more so.
There is an irony in Robertson’s tagging his tweet with ‘#parochial’. Presumably he would want the Today press review to extend its coverage to the Western Mail, The Scotsman (or more likely, God forbid, The National) and the Belfast Telegraph, although as a staunchly unionist publication perhaps that latter doesn’t feature on his wish list. The irony is that each of these would make the press review more parochial, with the great majority of listeners less likely to find anything of interest in newspapers circulating in only one part of the UK. Meantime, lurking in the wings, no doubt, will be advocates for the inclusion of the Yorkshire Post, Birmingham Mail or Dundee Courier.
Back in 2015 I chronicled a month of SNP grievances in a piece I called Grievance of the day. In only one month I logged moans about:
- The BBC short changes Scottish football (22 June)
- Scotland’s share [sic] of BBC income doesn’t reflect revenue raise here (29 June)
- Scotland is the only part of the UK where more than half of the people do not believe the BBC is properly reflecting life in their nation (14 July)
You’ll clock that that’s one gripe about the BBC every ten days. Not surprising, really, given that at the same time the SNP website included 690 documents or items referring to the BBC (it’ll probably be different now since they removed all media releases from the site).
Not only in 2015 but through to 2017 there was a continuing agitation from the SNP for the BBC1 six o’clock news to be transformed into a Scottish Six, an hour of TV news from a Scottish perspective, edited from Scotland. Out of the blue the BBC killed that campaign stone dead with the unexpected announcement that instead of a Scottish Six they were setting up a whole BBC Scotland channel run from Glasgow with extra funding, and including an hour long news programme every evening.
It won’t be enough of course. It never is. Their problem is that first ‘B’ in the BBC’s full name. Only separation would stop the agitation. But it’s not something most of us want and we have to understand that Robertson’s complaint about one small item in one programme on one BBC radio station is just part of their overarching purpose. That’s why their complaints about the BBC are different from many others.
The SNP are not looking for a correction in some editorial line. They’re looking for the break-up of an entire nation state.
The Nation said No Thanks! 
The reality of these frequent complaints is they are partly intended to perpetuate and grow a narrative that Scotland is a victim of some notional ‘others’. It’s not intended as a serious debating point. It firstly plays to the gallery of those who willingly believe it as it confirms their preconceived biases, secondly it hands extra ammunition and support to those who know it’s nonsense but will willingly use any negative grievance, true or not, to attack the very existence of the British state, and thirdly if there are enough negative stories out there then you swamp any serious debate and maybe a few floating voters might think, “well maybe there’s something in it”.
Another aspect is that people like Angus don’t primarily want more ‘representative’, or increased, coverage, they want bias, but in their direction (it’s why they luuurve ’The National’. If repeated accusations mean that the BBC, or any other news source starts being more sympathetic to them or asks their opinion a bit more or runs some extra features on them so much the better. The Author Eric Alterman referred to this sort of behaviour in American politics as “working the refs” an analogy from sports whereby you complain about every decision because maybe the referee will get tired of it and start cutting you more slack. In other words it’s a tactic that tries to claim bias even if there is none in order to create a bias in your favour.
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I couldn’t agree more. Thanks. Wish I’d had the wit to build those points into my post!
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That so few viewers actually tune in to the But n Ben channel shows how little they are interested in Scottish produced tv output. It’s all about imaginary grievances and separation.
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It’s a bit like the 53% average turnout for elections to Holyrood. It’s almost as if most of the Scottish electorate isn’t really all that bothered about “our Parliament”.
Meanwhile, SNP over-representation on the BBC has become something of a meme in certain websites’ comments sections. (Which, it strikes me, is exactly how they want it. Anything that stokes up anti-Scottish resentment in the rest of the UK is all grist to the mill as far as they’re concerned.)
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