What Has Become of the BBC?

A world-renowned news service, second to none. The standard for others to meet in the quality of its analysis and the depth of coverage. Celebrated as the voice of truth and feared by repressive regimes around the world. Justly famed for its impartiality.

But all is not as it seems. The BBC, paragon of journalistic virtue, bastion of broadcasting neutrality, has a blind spot.

It seems that the BBC doesn’t do positive stories about one of the most successful governments in Europe, a government that has in only three years of power managed to improve the lives of its citizens, avoid expenses scandals, keep within its budgets, all while running a popular minority administration.

That place is Scotland.

In reality it is far more than a blind spot. That in itself would perhaps be a credible explanation for the traditional crude parody of Scottish culture, lack of proportional investment, and shallow condescension that often passes for BBC reporting on Scotland. This is something new. Something profound has changed in how the BBC operates in Scotland, and people are starting to notice.

Blithe conciliatory explanations about a poor understanding by BBC staff of the Scottish devolutionary settlement within the UK are no longer acceptable, believable, or sufficient to explain what is now happening. The BBC’s new style of coverage in Scotland consists of the willful mis-reporting and twisting of stories to protect the British Establishment, clumsy Internet censorship, the suppression of crucial and important stories central to understanding the nation’s political life, scornfully discourteous interviewing of Scotland’s First Minister, and the barring of Scottish Government representative participation in UK election debates for a parliament that is supposed to represent Scotland’s interests.

Until the Al Megrahi release a year ago, little of what was happening could have been classified as deliberate censorship or propaganda. Until then, most of the problems were sins of omission, ignorance and interview bias, however blatant. The reality is probably that most BBC employees are essentially decent people with good critical thinking skills but with a blind spot within their own British identities, people who are struggling to understand or accept the geopolitical transformation that is happening right on their doorstep.

But a perceptible and strategic shift has indeed occurred. What we are witnessing today has all the hallmarks of a state propaganda machine that would make Chinese Government officials and their IT managers proud. This is no exaggeration. Follow the links.

The remarkable thing is why anyone should be surprised. This is what happens when financial rewards for organizations are skewed: quarterly reports lead to quarterly corporate performance; allowing banks to make loans with no matching reserves lets them lend to whatever misguided fools will accept a loan; self-regulation of money markets leads to the lunatics taking over the asylum and derivative financial products that even those selling them cannot understand. That’s what happens at the frayed edges of all incentive schemes. Organisations and people will almost always perform precisely how the financial structure around them demands them to perform. Good intentions and noble market forces be damned.

The BBC is no different. The inconvenient truth for Scotland is that the means by which the BBC Trust is funded creates a powerful incentive for its stakeholders to oppose Scottish independence. This is not just about the BBC’s Scottish employees protecting their jobs – if anything, many of these are good people held back from doing their jobs as they would wish. This goes right to the top.

The reason is that when Scotland eventually, inevitably, goes its own way, the BBC Trust stands to lose nearly 9% of its £3.6billion revenue, or approximately £310million, the total that Scots contribute (on pain of criminalization) to the BBC balance sheet. This is a mighty inducement for BBC management to direct its staff to run interference on anything that even resembles kudos for the nationalist-led Scottish Government whose stated intention is to lead Scotland to independence.

This colonial nonsense has to stop.

Whoever is responsible, the simplest solution would be for the Scottish Government to demand that the BBC immediately:

1. Cease and desist from the suppression of news and to allow its BBC Scotland staff to report stories pertaining to the Scottish political scene in a fair and balanced manner.

2. End its censorship of all commentary on BBC news websites and BBC blogs relating to Scottish politics (under the pretence that the comments are offensive).


The Scottish Government should let it be known that if this does not happen by a stated date then the BBC will be forced to provide under freedom of information all minutes for the past three years for BBC Scotland management and IT policy meetings, particularly pertaining to news content. As a public body these documents must exist. The sheer volume of information will prevent any attempt at redaction or selective destruction.

If they have nothing to hide, they should have nothing to fear.

If the BBC cooperates, so be it. If not, there should be a number of consequences. First, the BBC Trust should be considered to have violated its charter in Scotland and that the Scottish legal system, which retains the ultimate right of appeal in Scottish criminal cases, would henceforth not be prosecuting any cases brought for TV licence non-payment that are appealed.

This would, at a stroke, remove Scottish revenues from the BBC balance sheet and eliminate the financial incentive for the disgraceful censorship and news manipulation that is currently being passed off as political news in Scotland. The misinformation, half-truths and censorship would no doubt continue, but at least Scots will not be paying for it.

Second, the inter-government standoff would not only create a huge amount of sympathetic publicity in the High Streets of Scotland, something the Scottish Government so badly needs for its successes. Nor would it merely make Scots wake up to what is happening, and perhaps even begin to question what they are hearing.

The Scottish Government-endorsed payment boycott would galvanize and politicize ordinary Scots into action, creating a national sentiment and community solidarity around an unlawful and undemocratic situation. The dispute would be constitutional, not criminal. And no law would need to be passed in the Scottish Parliament to initiate it.

Thoreau, Gandhi and Martin Luther King all recognised the difference between morality and legality, and the need to break unjust laws peacefully. Civil disobedience was the cornerstone of Indian Independence and the US Civil Rights movement. If laws are all so perfect, why do we have parliaments to change them? Politicians make laws, but if British MPs are so perfect, why were most of them recently found to be intrinsically dishonest?

If the British Government says one thing, but the Scottish Government - for whom the Scottish people are sovereign - says another, which is right?

At some point it is inevitable that Scotland will have her own national broadcasting service. Norway, with a slightly smaller population than Scotland, manages fine with a TV licence fee of Kr2,322 (about £249) while Ireland, with its even smaller population, pays only €160, about £133 – each comparable to London’s annual UK propaganda fee of £145.50. So come independence, Scotland will easily fund a perfectly adequate national broadcaster for herself.

Instead of tolerating a corrupted version of someone else’s.

From the Mouths of Babes

With a cross party UK Parliament committee last week recommending that Britain should adopt Scotland’s price control plans to curb alcohol consumption – the same plans recently voted down by the same parties in the Scottish Parliament – the Scotland Office today hailed the breakthrough as a brilliant example of how the United Kingdom Union still works.

“It’s obvious, when you think about it,” announced Scottish Secretary Jim Murphy. “As everybody knows, Scotland is the only nation in the world lacking the political maturity to govern itself but, like an intelligent child, its parliament does occasionally have good ideas. It makes perfect sense for the legitimate government of Britain to vote down such half-baked legislation in Scotland and to bring it south to the big table and apply to it the intellectual and legal rigour that only the UK legislature can provide.”

Medical experts lined up to back the move. A spokesman for the Scottish Medical Association confirmed his organization’s support for the proposal:

“Without having British legal status, Scots would have ignored the inflated prices imposed by the Scottish legislation, knowing full well the extra money they were paying was not imposed through taxes, but by the crude device of minimum pricing. They would have seen right through it and kept buying booze just as much as before.”

As Murphy explained last night from his spectacular London office:

“Through the Scotland Office, the British government has empowered me to have a watching brief on proposals we routinely vote down in Scotland, in case some of them actually make sense. Westminster has never been shy in adopting good ideas from the regions, and this is the perfect example of how the Scottish devolution settlement makes Britain stronger. By the way, what do you think of the view from my window? Isn’t it super?”

Nicola Sturgeon, Scottish Minister for Health and Wellbeing, reluctantly agreed with the move:

“In spite of what some claim south of the border, this episode has proved how valuable the Scottish Parliament still is to the British Government. We are currently drafting a white paper to present to the Danish, Swedish and Dutch governments to recommend they cease pretending to be real countries with climate summits, Nobel prizes, and international courts of human rights and start drafting legislation that Germany might find useful. It’s such a powerful argument, we’re seriously considering dropping our central policy of independence. I don’t know what we were thinking.”

The Calamari Commission: Full of holes

Here is what the UK Government’s Calman Commission on Scottish Devolution might have said if it were not window dressing for the vested interests of the UK of GB and NI.





The following summaries of its main points are from this excellent summary in the Times.

Calman Commission On Income Tax:

“The commission recommends a 10p cut in all income tax rates in Scotland, with a corresponding reduction in the annual block grant from the Treasury. Holyrood would be free to levy part or all of the 10p rate, or even levy more. The Scottish government would have to make a “tax decision” in terms of the size of its budget. If it levied less than the 10p rate, it would in effect cut its own budget. If it levied more, it could spend more on public services.”

Here is a better idea:

After a successful referendum on independence, the Scottish Government should take control of ALL its tax revenue raising abilities. The Scottish government should then make tax decisions based on what is good for the country.

Just as every other country does.

On Oil:

“While the devolution of North Sea oil revenues is feasible, oil is a finite resource and volatile in price. Basing the Scottish budget on oil prices would be a big risk and for this reason the devolution of oil and gas tax receipts was rejected.”

What a truly breathtaking piece of condescension. Ironic on so many levels. We'll pass. How about:

While the continued appropriation of North Sea oil revenues by the UK is feasible, oil is a finite resource and volatile in price. Basing the British budget on oil prices has been shown to be a big risk and for this reason the direct payment of all oil and gas tax receipts to Scotland is the preferred model.

On the Barnett formula:

“The population-based Barnett formula should stay until a new needs-based mechanism for the whole of the UK is introduced.”

A 'needs-based mechanism' has already been proposed - for the needs of the people of Scotland:

The population-based Barnett formula should be scrapped and Scotland should declare itself independent and free of interference from London.

On other powers:

“Holyrood should have control over airgun laws and the power to set drink-driving and speed limits and run Scottish elections. Scottish ministers should also appoint a Scotland representative to the BBC Trust.”

The following wording would have made much more sense:

Holyrood should have control over all Scotland's laws and have the power to set any limit on antisocial behaviour it chooses. The Government of an independent Scotland should create its own broadcasting corporation.

On handing back powers to Westminster:

“The commission says that Westminster should set laws on charities, food content and labelling and the regulation of health professionals for the whole of the UK, along with legislation on the winding up of companies.”

Charities? Westminster has purloined Scotland's lottery money for the London Olympics, money earmarked for Scottish charities. Food content? Under the free market policies of the British government we got mad cow disease. Health policies? The Scottish health system is leaving behind the English system with every passing month.

It all seems very messy. There is an easier way:

Holyrood should have control over all Scotland's laws.

On strengthening relations:

“Co-operation should be strengthened between Holyrood and Westminster. Ministers from Holyrood should appear routinely before committees in Westminster and vice versa.”

Co-operation is a wonderful concept. Here is a much better idea:

After three centuries of incorporation into the United Kingdom as a minor partner without a voice of its own, direct diplomatic relations should be re-established between Scotland and the other nations of the world. Ministers from Holyrood should co-operate with ministers from other nations on a routine basis at bilateral, committee and summit level.

Just as every other country does.

UPDATE

Top economists add voice to claims Calman tax plan could hit economy

Scotland Independent by 1950

What would Scotland be like today if the Home Rule Bill had been passed on its second reading in 1913? It was a very close thing, only prevented by the outbreak of the carnage of the Great War.(1) If Home Rule had happened then - rather than 85 years later in 1998 - it is safe to assume that independence would have followed within forty years, say by 1948, fifty years before devolution was grudgingly granted.


Comparing the history of Scotland to that of independent European states over the past sixty years, what follows is an attempt to construct what an independent Scotland's history would have been, had this happened.

1. Scotland declares independence in 1948, a year after India. The general feeling in both England and Scotland is that with the Empire winding down, the Union has served its purpose. It joins the UN the same year, the Scottish member sitting between the representatives for the 3.9 million people of Saudi Arabia and 13.3 million of South Africa.

2. The Stone of Destiny is returned to Scotland after the independence celebrations. Scottish Police hold back the jubilant crowds as the stone is welcomed at the border. A piper welcomes it home to Arbroath Abbey.

3. Queen Elizabeth's second coronation takes place over the Stone of Destiny in a refurbished Palace of Holyrood in 1953. The Scottish Government celebrates the event with new blue 'E1R' letter boxes. The English press label it a stunt.

4. Scotland re-establishes its east coast burghs’ European trade contacts from the time of the Hanseatic League. On March 30th, 1956, mayors from Flemish towns take part in an emotional ceremony in Berwick to remember the Flemish merchants killed when Edward I of England ordered his men to slaughter all 17,000 men, women and children there 660 years before.

5. Scotland a signatory to the Treaty of Rome in 1957.

6. Edinburgh rapidly expands as the population and services around Scotland’s government grows there.

7. The Scottish government invests in Glasgow to give it a facelift. It loses its grim post-imperial waterfront to be reborn in the architectural style of Charles Rennie Mackintosh (See above). The Highlands complain that too much investment is happening in the south.

8. Reverse emigration begins and children and grandchildren of Scots who emigrated in the last decades of Empire return from around the world. Gaelic speaking grandchildren of Nova Scotian émigrés, speaking English with strange Canadian accents, begin to resettle the Highlands.

9. In a 1960 referendum, Berwick-Upon-Tweed votes to return to Scotland, motivated by the better social services, healthcare and free transport for the elderly to the north. Other English Border towns also threaten to secede for the same reason, much to the annoyance of the British parliament at Westminster.

10. Oil is discovered under Scottish waters in the 1960s. Scotland leaves the oil industry in private hands and the oil begins to flow as the American oil companies apply their open water extraction skills learned in the Gulf of Mexico.

11. Glasgow’s social deprivation from the last years of Union is largely cured by 1970.

12. A cod war with Iceland is averted in the 1970s when Scotland and Iceland come to a peaceful agreement on their sea borders.

13. British PM Ted Heath follows Scotland with what is left of Britain into full membership of the Common Market in 1973.

14. The rump British state is refused an IMF loan in 1975, due to its lack of collateral. It goes cap in hand to Europe for funds.

15. In 1978, Scottish football is made a laughing stock as the team is bundled out of the World Cup in the first round, after boasting they would win it.

16. Scotland has a referendum in 1979 and votes to leave the EEC, even though 51.6% of the electorate choose to remain. Under Scotland’s 1949 Constitution, 40% of the electorate need to vote ‘Yes’ for Scotland remain within external organisations. The 'Yes' vote cries foul.

17. Margaret Thatcher is elected PM of Britain in 1979 and presides over EEC investment – mainly French and German subsidies - to reinvigorate English and Welsh industry, concentrating on mining.

18. In 1981, Scots band Rusty Nail win the Eurovision Song Contest, narrowly beating English band Bucks Fizz. Their gimmick is for the two girls to pull off the two men’s kilts, revealing women’s underwear.

19. Using her new-found oil wealth, Scotland begins building a breathtaking program of infrastructure in the 1980s. Scotland is soon covered in an integrated modern network of roads, rail and ferry links, addressing Highland concerns about excessive centralisation. The A9 becomes the backbone of the road system, a three-lane superhighway from Edinburgh to Inverness, one of the safest roads in Europe.

20. Aberdeen and Inverness hit one million people by the year 2000. Oban, a thriving West Highland student city of 500,000, becomes the twin city of Bergen in Norway.

21. In the 1980s, Scotland becomes famous for its effortless transition from heavy engineering to high tech, fuelled by low corporate taxes and government relocation subsidies. Silicon Glen becomes an R&D and export phenomenon, unlike the cheap PC manufacturing facilities in England, which take advantage of its cheap labour.

22. In 1985, the Glasgow’s Mile’s Better campaign celebrates the city as one of the most beautiful in the world.

23. By 1990, oil revenues have given Scotland one of the hardest currencies in the world, and the Scottish pound becomes a safe haven currency, alongside Switzerland and Norway’s. (2)

24. A sovereign oil fund is created in 1990 to prevent successive Scottish Labour governments spending oil revenues on infrastructure Scotland no longer needs, and to keep inflation down. Despite this, Scotland is soon regarded as one of the most expensive places in the world, but not for the locals, who are paid in local currency and find everywhere else in the world ridiculously cheap. Scottish students become known throughout Europe for their annoying leather backpacks and free higher education.

25. Scottish unemployment drops to among the lowest in the western world, while the Scottish welfare state is the envy of Europe, with poverty almost non-existent.

26. By 2000, Scotland’s population reaches 7 million, having grown at the same pace as other similar size European countries since 1950, supplemented by extensive reverse emigration. (3)

27. In late 2008, a consortium of Scottish and Norwegian banks bails out Iceland, after the Welsh Prime Minister of Britain – known popularly as 'Flash' Morgan for his role in the credit crisis there – invokes anti-terrorism laws to seize Icelandic assets to protect British investors.

28. In 2009, Scotland shrugs off the credit crunch and the subsequent depression by dipping into its $326 billion sovereign oil fund, recently hit by the world economic downturn. (4)

I hope this gives at least some Scots an idea of how much their birthright has been stolen from them, and how much is at stake in the coming referendum.

Any resemblance to actual events or to persons living or dead is purely intentional.






References

(1) Murray G.H. Pittock, Scottish Nationality, Palgrave, New York, 2001, pages 100-102

(2) See http://www.oilofscotland.org/

(3) Norway – from 3.2 million to 4.6 million; Denmark – from 4.3 to 5.3 million; Sweden – from 7 million to 9 million; Portugal – from 8.4 million to 10.7 million.

(4) This is the current balance of the Norwegian Sovereign oil fund, which is spread across a mixed portfolio of ethical investments. Twenty nine corporations are barred from receiving any of the funds.
http://www.swfinstitute.org/fund/norway.php

The Accidental UK

I often wonder how Britain would have turned out today if certain world events had not gone quite the way they did. Because, as any historian will tell you, history is most definitely not a long sequence of predictable outcomes. Rather, it is a series of throws of the dice, random results and accidents, every one of which could have gone a very different way, with vastly differing consequences for all subsequent events.

The historical record is in fact littered with moments where something utterly different, or the exact opposite – or nothing at all – could just as easily have happened.

So for a bit of fun, I thought I might try my own hand at counter-factual history. It’s what no serious historian will admit to doing but for many it's an obsession. The idea behind it is this: if history is all one long inexorable progression of inevitable facts and dates, how come no one actually knows what’s going to happen next? Just as random things happen today, events in the past could equally well have had many outcomes.

The relevance for all you budding English and Scottish nationalists out there - or indeed for any political activist - is this: if you can’t see all the possible outcomes at certain key historical turning points, how on earth can you recognize the possibilities that lie right in front of you at this very moment?

For me, this is what makes history interesting.

Take, for example, the Spanish Armada: if it had avoided the storm, dealt with the English fire-ships and allowed Parma to mount a successful Spanish invasion of England in 1588, England might well have reverted to Catholicism after its brief flirtation with Protestantism. The plantation of Ulster would never have happened, the Americas could have become entirely Spanish and Catholic(1), regal union with Scotland would not have occurred in 1603, and England would have been divided religiously from Protestant Scotland instead of Catholic Ireland.

Or had the wind that held the French fleet off the Irish coast turned, allowing them to land at Bantry Bay in December 1796, it might easily have led to a successful French invasion(2), sparking an Irish rebellion two years earlier than 1798 and possibly the end to British rule in Ireland, which would have had a republic 125 years earlier, a base for any subsequent French war with Britain, and the Peace of Amiens might have held.(3) Napoleon might have died in his sleep in Paris as an old man.

Or if General Lee’s strategic intentions had not been discovered via his lost Special Order No. 191, the South’s invasion of the North might then have been an enormous success, the traumatised Northern population would have sued for peace and the South would have won the Confederate War of Independence. Lincoln's war to save the Union would have failed, and the Confederacy would have become the independent CSA with a slave-based cotton economy.(4) With the defeat of the American democratic experiment, US General Sheridan would not have toured Germany in 1870 to advise the Germans on how to wage total war on the French(5) , the French would not have thirsted for revenge for 44 years, the catastrophe of WW1 might have been averted, and Martin Luther King would not have been demanding civil rights in 1963, but an end to slavery.

As for Britain, if the South had won, the electoral franchise would probably not have been extended in the wake of the US Civil War. Patriotic British historians like to dispute this, arguing that Lincoln’s victory had minimal influence on Britain’s own idea to extend the franchise with the Reform Act of 1867.(6) However, the evidence strongly suggests that with their powerful pro-Confederate bias, Britain’s ruling landowning classes would have liked nothing better than to see American popular democracy crushed.(7) A year after Appomattox in April 1866, future Prime Minister William Gladstone recognised the true significance of the victory:

“The one single and important point of the effect that has been produced in America by a largely-extended population franchise [is] …the wonderful…almost incredible effect that has been produced by that system of giving expression to the national will…we ought to… appropriate the lessons.”(8)

And without the vote of the working class, Keir Hardie would have had no reason to form the Labour Party.(9)

And if in 1914 General Oskar Potiorek had remembered to tell Archduke Ferdinand’s driver of the change of route, they would have avoided the assassin Gavrilo Princip, who had given up waiting for them and was having a sandwich.(10) There would have been no assassination, no ultimatum, and the First World War might easily have been avoided. With Britain not distracted by war, there would have been no Easter Rising in Dublin. Neither would there have been a Russian Revolution, a lost generation, German hyperinflation, a Nazi Party, and the British Empire might have lasted another hundred years.

The British parliament might also have passed the first Scottish Home Rule Bill of 1913, already approved on its first reading.(11) Instead, in the rush to war it was forgotten and, rather than getting a devolved Scottish parliament within the Imperial British state on the edge of a peaceful Europe, Scotland saw 110,000 of her sons sent to their deaths in the trenches, nearly 20% of Britain’s war dead.(12)

A sobering thought, and something to think about for those who think Scottish nationalism is a recent reaction to the discovery of oil.

There is also something here to ponder for those who think there is something special, noble, pre-ordained, planned or sacred in the structure of the United Kingdom today. As we have seen, history shows it to be little more than a series of ad hoc reactions to historical accidents - which will continue to happen - and that the current political structure has no more legitimacy than any other.

Notes

(1) Geoffrey Parker, “The Repulse of the English Fireships: the Spanish Armada Triumphs, August 8, 1588”, in What If?, Pan, London, 1999, pages 139-154

(2) It was a significant French invasion force of 15,000 troops. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irish_Rebellion_of_1798

(3) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_of_Amiens

(4) Harry Turtledove’s Timeline-191 novels deal with this perfectly plausible scenario, and extend the timeline as far as WW1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline-191

(5) When the French defeat at Sedan in 1870 did not lead to expected cessation in hostilities from the French people, US General Sheridan gave the following advice to Bismarck: “The proper strategy consists in inflicting as telling blows as possible on the enemy’s army, and then in causing the inhabitants so much suffering that they must long for peace, and force the government to demand it. The people must be left nothing but their eyes to weep with over the war.” As the record shows, Bismarck subsequently followed Sheridan's advice.

Henry R. Winkler, Review of ‘Heard Round the World: The Impact Abroad of the Civil War,’ in The Journal of American History, 56, 2. Sep.1969, pages 388-389

(6) A typical denial is found in David M. Potter, Political Science Quarterly, 86, 2, June 1971, p288.

(7) Dean B. Mahin, One war at a Time: The International Dimensions of the American Civil War, Brasseys, Dulles VA, 2000, pages 25-26

(8) From H.R. Allen,‘Civil War, Reconstruction and Great Britain,’ in Heard Round the World: The Impact Abroad of the Civil War, Harold Hyman (ed.), Knopf, New York, 1969, p48

(9) In 1888 Keir Hardie helped form the Scottish Labour Party (no connection with the Unionist lapdogs of today), whose party president was the socialist Robert Cunninghame-Graham, who went on to found the National Party of Scotland, forerunner to the SNP. In 1893 Hardie then helped form the Independent Labour Party in England. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keir_Hardie

(10) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gavrilo_Princip

(11) Murray G.H. Pittock, Scottish Nationality, Palgrave, New York, 2001, pages 100-102

(12) Pittock, p103