Joan McAlpine: BBC badly needs to raise its game in Scotland

Editing a newspaper these days is probably the definition of executive multi-tasking. You need a business brain as well as a nose for news, an understanding of the bottom line as well as the snappy headline. If an editor finds time to practise his old trade, you know the subject must be important.

So when the editor of this newspaper, John McLellan, yesterday penned a column supporting the views of former BBC trustee Jeremy Peat, we should pay attention. Mr Peat had argued in these pages that more thought should be given to how Scottish news and current affairs is covered by the BBC. In particular, he said the main network news output is not serving Scotland well – we listen to long debates about the NHS or school reform in England and Wales, which are of no relevance.

A Scottish Six O’Clock News combining the best of Scottish, UK and international stories, was ruled out by London in the late 1990s for the telling reason that BBC bosses thought it would be “bad for the UK”. Professor Lindsay Paterson resigned from his role on the Broadcasting Council of Scotland in protest at the time, and it later emerged that Prime Minister Tony Blair had influenced the decision to block a Scottish Six. The technical capacity is available to produce an appropriate bulletin for Scotland, as is the journalistic talent. As Mr McLellan said yesterday: “Someone with satellite or cable TV in Stornoway can watch the local news from East Anglia but not a full Scottish news programme, which puts national, UK and international stories in the correct context.”

A senior BBC insider told me recently that the “Scottish Six” was still “not on the table”. Perhaps that is why Peat felt he had to put it there. The BBC is centralising just as demand in society at large is for more devolution, and attitudes seem almost to have hardened since the Scottish Six debate of the late 1990s. Recently, two separate BBC figures have told me of conversations with senior executives who dismissed demands for better resources in Scotland on demographic grounds, arguing that there were more people in north west England than in Scotland. There was contempt for the concept of this country as a nation.

It is, therefore, timely that the chairman of the BBC Trust, Chris Patten, or Baron Patten of Barnes, visits the Scottish Parliament this week, where he will meet the First Minister. I believe the former Conservative minister and Hong Kong governor recently made a similar trip to Wales, where the arbitrary government decision to hand the Welsh-speaking channel over to the BBC has caused resentment. I hope Lord Patten was informed of the words of the great Welsh writer, Raymond Williams, who coined the phrase “metropolitan parochialism”. Williams observed that where power is excessively concentrated, the powerful often forget every reality but their own.

That perhaps explains the odd decision to withdraw an invitation to the First Minister to appear on a sports panel in advance of the Scotland-England Six Nations rugby game. The reason given – that his appearance was inappropriate at a politically sensitive time due to the referendum debate – has serious implications with the referendum two and a half years away. How then can he do his job representing Scotland? The argument that a Scotland-England sporting clash has particular sensitivity suggests a peculiar reading of the independence issue – framing it in the context of a conflict, as opposed to a reasoned debate about good governance and democratic accountability.

The most generous interpretation of the decision is that it was made in ignorance. But that is worrying because the man who made it, political adviser Rick Bailey, has been given a powerful role in shaping the referendum coverage. When he appeared before the Scottish Parliament’s education and culture committee two weeks ago, BBC Scotland’s head of news and current affairs, John Boothman, revealed that Mr Bailey was a key member of a “high-level, senior group [formed] to discuss and plan the coverage of the referendum”. The group is to be chaired by the BBC Scotland controller Ken MacQuarrie and includes Mr Boothman, a controversial figure because of his past links to the Labour Party, and also the head of UK news in London.

Lord Patten must be left in no doubt that there is, among a significant section of opinion in Scotland, a total lack of confidence in the BBC’s ability to cover the referendum impartially. To return to Williams’ point, “the powerful often forget every reality but their own”. That might explain why Mr Bailey felt it appropriate to take the First Minister off a rugby programme in the interests of balance, despite the fact that the balance of political opinion in Scotland is not reflected across the BBC, which mirrors the UK as a whole. The coalition parties in particular punch well above their weight in terms of the coverage they get in Scotland, both on the network and opt-out programming.

If we are to have a referendum that is a straight choice between the status quo and independence, then you cannot have the topic discussed in the traditional, UK four-party set-up – it should be balanced for and against. But how can the BBC really pull this off when the vast bulk of its political reporters and producers have all their contacts in a Westminster village dominated by anti-independence parties? This is reflected in the language used in coverage. If a supposedly impartial BBC reporter spoke of the “struggle for Scotland’s freedom” there would be, quite rightly, an outcry. Why then is it acceptable for them to use the equally loaded term “separation”?

Independence is about joining in – being part of the family of nations, enjoying an equal relationship with our other partners on these islands. Independence is a neutral term and that’s the one that should be used. Lord Patten should also be left in no doubt that the cuts to current affairs coverage in Scotland are unacceptable.

For Radio Scotland’s budget to be slashed, with quality programmes such as Newsweek and Janice Forsyth axed while Radio Four is protected as a “jewel in the crown” is not just metropolitan parochialism – it is downright arrogance.

• Joan McAlpine is an SNP MSP for South of Scotland