BBC Scotland British Brainwashing Corporation

On Thurday, the preliminary findings of the UK Covid Inquiry were published. Baroness Hallett, the chair of the inquiry summarised the findings as: “The processes planning and policy of the civil contingency structures across the UK failed the citizens of all four nations of the United Kingdom.” And how was this spun by BBC Scotland? You guessed it, BBC Scotland’s headline screamed: “Scotland not properly prepared for pandemic – Covid inquiry”, followed by the sub heading: ” The inquiry found that the Scottish Government, led by Nicola Sturgeon until 2023, ‘failed’ its citizens.”

This is the very same BBC Scotland which, when the pandemic was just starting to take hold, platformed Labour and Tory politicians who were outraged at the very notion that the Scottish Government might do things differently from the British Government and urged the Scottish Government to follow Westminster slavishly.  Now watch as BBC Scotland platforms those same politicians castigating the Scottish Government for not doing more things differently from the British Government more quickly.

BBC Scotland has taken a story of UK wide shortcomings and presented it as though it were a Scotland specific problem, which was entirely the fault of the Scottish government. It’s noticeable that BBC Wales presented the story in a far more neutral and balanced way. The headline on the BBC Wales website simply read: ” Government ‘failed its citizens’ on covid by planning for the wrong pandemic, report finds.” Note that the headline doesn’t say which government. The contrast in tone with BBC Scotland is stark. This report was accompanied by a photo of nurses and doctors in full PPE working to keep a desperately ill patient alive. The BBC Scotland report was accompanied by a photo of Nicola Sturgeon in a face mask *protecting herself* is the obvious subtext. Elsewhere in the UK it’s brave health workers fight the pandemic. Scotland it’s demonising an individual SNP politician. Do you see how propaganda works now?

It’s the same playbook with BBC Scotland’s constant negative stories about NHS Scotland. BBC Scotland at best gives only a passing nod to the reality that 14 years of Tory austerity and funding squeezes have left the NHS in crisis across the UK, yet BBC Scotland habitually reports on it as though problems in the NHS in Scotland are Scotland specific and solely the responsibility and fault of the SNP led Scottish Government.

As we are frequently reminded health is devolved, but BBC Scotland hardly ever points out that the funding which the Scottish Government receives for the NHS is ultimately determined by the amount that the British Government chooses to spend on the NHS in England. As the new Labour UK Health Minister Wes Streeting pointed out when asked about the failures of the NHS in Labour run Wales: “All roads ultimately run back to Westminster.”

Of course the Scottish Government can, and does, choose to spend more on NHS Scotland than the part of the block grant nominally given in respect of healthcare, but it can only do so by cutting other parts of the Scottish budget as the devolution settlement does not allow the Scottish Government the full revenue raising and borrowing powers that Westminster possesses.

Labour’s Welsh Government has the worst performing NHS in the UK, while Scotland has the best performing, but you’d never know that from listening to BBC Scotland. The SNP runs the best performing NHS in the UK but regularly platforms the party responsible for the worst performing NHS in the UK to attack it. BBC Scotland acts like the Labour party’s private gaslighter.

Propaganda rarely operates by telling an outright lie. More often it is far more subtle, operating by telling a story without its full context. BBC Scotland is a master of this. BBC Scotland is also notorious for fixating obsessively on news which is bad for the Scottish Government and the SNP but glossing quickly over or omitting entirely any good news or positive developments. A particularly glaring case in point came when Humza Yousaf successfully negotiated a settlement with health service unions making Scotland the only part of the UK to avoid strike action by health service workers. BBC Scotland had clearly been gearing up for an orgy of SNP bad had strikes taken place, but quickly trotted through the news that strikes had been averted in under 30 seconds.

In the same way you scarcely hear any mention on BBC Scotland of the remarkable success of the Scottish Child Payment in reducing child poverty. Professor Danny Dorling of the University of Oxford stated in 2023 that the Scottish Child Payment is responsible for ‘the biggest fall in child poverty, anywhere in Europe, for at least 40 years’. But all we got from BBC Scotland was tumbleweed.

Equally BBC Scotland seems to go out of its way to avoid giving prominence to stories which are politically damaging to the anti-independence parties. BBC Scotland is not hounding Anas Sarwar over Keir Starmer’s refusal to abolish the two child cap on benefits despite Sarwar proclaiming loudly that the Labour party in Scotland is opposed to it. It’s only the SNP which must be held to account.

Scotland needs a cultural shift to break through a Scottish media which sees its real job as being to undermine any notion that Scotland could ever achieve any success on its own merits.

In the wake of the SNP’s defeat in the Westminster general election, pro independence campaign group Believe in Scotland has unveiled a new strategy for winning Scottish independence, one which crucially does not depend upon piling up electoral mandates in Scotland for the SNP or other pro independence parties and then going cap in hand to Westminster asking for a section 30 order for another independence referendum. That strategy is never going to work, the only cap that Keir Starmer accepts is the two child cap on benefits.

The strategy of asking for a Section 30 order from Westminster was based on the assumption, which we now know to be incorrect, that we are dealing with honourable and principled opponents who will play by the established rules. The experience of the 2021 Scottish election in which, following a campaign dominated by the issue of another independence referendum, the pro independence parties won a convincing majority has taught us otherwise. BBC Scotland willingly colluded in the gaslighting by Labour and the Conservatives which claimed that there was in fact no mandate for a second independence referendum. Democracy in Scotland was undermined and BBC Scotland let it happen. No matter how many or how convincing the mandate won at the ballot box, no British prime minister will ever agree to another independence referendum and BBC Scotland will facilitate this travesty of democracy.

Believe in Scotland believes that the way ahead is a de facto referendum preceded by a new style Scottish Citizens’ Convention which would energise and enthuse independence supporters and the indy curious in the run up to a de facto referendum. This could help break through the anti independence media’s constant diet of woe. A little bird tells me that the Scottish Government is receptive to this idea, a welcome sign that in future we won’t see any more SNP election campaigns dooming themselves to failure by campaigning for a mandate to request/demand/ask for Westminster to agree to another independence referendum, a mandate which everyone knows will be denied or ignored no matter how strong it is, a denial of democracy which will be facilitated by most of the media in Scotland, not least BBC Scotland.

The organisation says: “We believe that Scotland can have that national conversation in a far more inclusive and productive way, ahead of a potential de facto independence referendum. The Scottish Government doesn’t need a referendum (nor Westminster’s permission) to engage the people of Scotland and it can do so in a way that creates a cultural shift, as well as an increase in ambition for, and confidence in, our nation.”

You can read the full report here https://drive.google.com/file/d/1_V_GKCfEqhRV4AsBvPewpl0WbaqCZTTV/view

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