BBC’s withdrawal

I wish I could share Alexander McKay’s confidence (Letters, 30 October) that the BBC does not have an increasing South of England bias in its reporting.

However, my perception is that the views it now presents are that the only British mountains are in Snowdonia and that Britain’s sea fisheries are now a few small boats in Padstow and thereabouts.

According to its weather maps Scotland is a shrivelled pea on a bloated English dumpling, and if Scotland is going to get the best weather the forecasters console themselves with “but it is going to be much colder in Scotland”.

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Scotland’s involvement in Britain’s wars is being quietly buried.

For instance, a recent BBC documentary about the Korean War was exclusively about English regiments, and if recent Festivals of Remembrance are anything to go by, the wartime sacrifices of Scottish personnel are now largely forgotten.

This may all stem from the growing enclave mentality of a race which sees itself as having been recently kicked out of an empire and Ireland, with the imminent likelihood of the same happening in part of its home island being such a raw topic that it can’t even face talking about it.

Of course the BBC has an identity problem to resolve, but withdrawing like a snail into its shell is no answer.

Irvine Inglis

Reston

Berwickshire