Salmond calls BBC ‘tin-pot dictators’

FIRST Minister Alex Salmond has accused the BBC of acting like a “tin-pot dictatorship” and questioned its impartiality after being dropped from a BBC Six Nations panel at Murrayfield.

Salmond had been invited to appear on the panel alongside two rugby pundits – former England international Jeremy Guscott and former Scottish international Andy Nicol – but the First Minister’s inclusion on a sporting panel was vetoed by Ric Bailey, the BBC’s chief political adviser in London.

The BBC said it would have been “inappropriate to give undue prominence” to any one political party ahead of the local authority elections in May.

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Speaking at Murrayfield before yesterday’s Calcutta Cup match, Salmond claimed that the BBC is “being run from Downing Street by extension”.

“What this means is that an editorial or journalistic decision by the sports editor has been overwritten for political reasons by the political adviser,” he said. “That’s what you get in tin-pot dictatorships. You’re not meant to get it at the BBC.

“I’m afraid the BBC are on the run, or being run from Downing Street by extension, and that’s the comment I’ll be making to the chairman of the trust on Thursday.”

A spokesman for the BBC said: “The BBC’s obligation is to ensure it achieves due impartiality across all its output. Given the nature of political debate around Scotland’s future and the proximity of local government elections in Scotland, it was decided that it would be inappropriate to give undue prominence at the moment to any single political leader in the context of the Scotland-England game.”