Brian Wilson: It’s time to ask a different question

It is a while since the BBC’s Question Time was a force in the land attracting, at its peak, an audience of over 10 million and providing a high-level forum for panellists of distinction to debate the weighty issues of the day. It has been going since 1979 and the decline has been gradual.

In times past, Scots of all political persuasions and none figured heavily in the cut and thrust of informed debate, irrespective of where the programme was coming from. Now they are more likely to be ghettoised into the kind of mind-numbing argument about Scotland’s constitutional future that dominated last Thursday’s dismal edition from Inverness.

The producers of Question Time have their own questions to answer about how they have allowed a flagship programme to deteriorate to the extent that it should probably be given a humane burial. But there is the additional factor that whenever it comes from Scotland, Question Time has to dance to the tune of contrived controversy about “balance” and content.

The overcrowded shambles that emerged from Inverness should cause pause for thought. Is this really how we want Scotland to present itself - as an inward-looking backwater where the first 20 minutes of any discussion programme must, as a matter of ritual, be devoted to drivel about “the constitution”? The switch-off rate, both north and south of the border, would be more revealing than any pearls offered by the panel.

Syria may suffer massacre. The euro may be in a state of collapse. The Coalition government may be on the ropes. But hell would freeze over before a producer of Question Time or any similar programme would dare come to Scotland and apply the same news values that are axiomatic anywhere else in the United Kingdom.

They have been conned into believing that failing to major on the constitution would be to insult the nation though I suspect that most of the nation would be delighted to be offered the occasional constitution-free debate. The relentless drive to reconfigure Scottish politics along lines of opinions about our constitutional status has led us into a condition where it requires courage to insist that other issues matter more. Much, much more.

The Inverness programme was the symptom of this wider malaise which, unless resisted, is only going to get worse. Notice of this was served by the “senior Nationalist MSP” who was allotted the role of stirring up trouble about “balance” between pro- and anti-separatists. “In future,” he declared grandly, “the BBC should ensure a balanced panel, from both sides of the referendum debate, whenever independence is expected to be discussed”.

Having unilaterally determined that Scotland is to be subjected to more than two more years of their obsession, the SNP are now trying to dictate that every political discussion between then and now will be geared to that agenda. This would formalise the position that Scottish politics are no longer about left, right and centre. The qualifications of individuals to speak with knowledge or conviction about health or education, far less the economy or world affairs, are irrelevant.

All that matters is that there should be “a balanced panel… whenever independence is discussed” - which, they will also insist, means on every occasion there is a political discussion broadcast in or from Scotland. This is the tyranny of the minority with a vengeance and it should be resisted by anybody who cares for editorial integrity and the right of Scots to determine a hierarchy of priorities that is not dictated from a single political perspective.

When last, for example, was there a serious discussion on any of our broadcasting media about how the National Health Service is being run - a much more relevant subject to most Scots than the constitutional debate? This week’s British Attitudes Survey suggests sharply falling satisfaction rates with the NHS in Scotland as in the rest of Britain. Can the current political custodians of the NHS in Scotland never be called to account without “a balanced panel from both sides of the referendum debate”?

Once a referendum campaign is formally under way - that is, in the two or three months leading up to the vote - the demand for “balance” between the two sides of the argument will be entirely legitimate. Indeed, I take some democratic pride from the fact that it is already enshrined in law as the result of a test case which bears my name.

Let me explain. In the run-up to the 1979 devolution referendum, it was intended by the parties and broadcasters that it would be “business as usual” over the division of political broadcasts. The result of this would have been that three parties broadcast in favour of devolution with only the Tories against - which clearly did not reflect the make-up of the campaign or the balance of opinion at that time.

The Labour Vote No Campaign, which I chaired, decided to test the matter in the Court of Session after other pleadings failed. The case became Wilson v The Independent Broadcasting Authority and Lord Ross, the Lord Justice Clerk, found in our favour.

This established ground-rules which were enshrined in law via the Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act of 2000. In fact the precedent set by that case has been applied to referendum law in many countries.

I need hardly say that I got no thanks for it from the Nationalists at the time. We were reviled for having “taken the Labour Party to court” though, in truth, we did no such thing. Quite rightly, we took the broadcasters to court. And if the Nationalists are serious about their demand for “a balanced panel from both sides of the referendum debate whenever independence is expected to be discussed” then that is exactly what they should do too - or else be told to go away and play with their saltires.

There is plenty in Scotland to talk about and we should resist being divided along the only lines that the Nationalists are interested in. The vast majority of Scots are perfectly happy with our dual or multiple identities.

Every survey shows that constitutional change comes far down the list of Scottish priorities. The constant bullying of the single-issue obsessives needs to be stood up to or we all be reduced to the level of Question Time from Inverness.