By Rab Bruce’s Spider

So a Scottish Six is back on the agenda despite having been resisted for decades, the principal objection seeming to be that Scots are incapable of producing a genuinely national and international news programme without turning it into some sort of parochial pastiche of The Broons or Gregor Fisher’s portrayal of the Outer Hebrides Broadcasting Corporation.

To counter these claims, Stuart Cosgrove has written a truly excellent piece for Bella Caledonia and, if you haven’t read it already, you can find it at:

http://bellacaledonia.org.uk/2016/02/25/dont-cringe-in-my-backyard/

On the other hand, Derek Bateman, who used to work for BBC News, has highlighted some of the issues such a programme would face although these are, as ever, more political than practical. You can read his article at:

http://derekbateman.co.uk/2016/02/25/but-is-it-news/

Of these two views, Stuart Cosgrove’s is the more positive but I fear he will be proved wrong. There is a good reason a Scottish Six has been resisted and it is because the London-controlled BBC do not want to relinquish editorial control because it could be seen as yet another step on the road to Scottish independence. The Scottish Press are vocal in their derision of the very idea of a Scottish Six, claiming that Scots are incapable of producing such a programme without the benefit of the London media lens to interpret global events for them but, of course, the Scottish Press, almost universally Unionist in outlook, also have a vested interest in ensuring that Scots only see the world as filtered by London, a task which the majority of journalists appear to believe the newspapers do entirely adequately despite the continuing slump in their sales which, in any other industry would suggest to the management that something is very wrong indeed with the product they are serving up.

As for a Scottish Six, there is no technical reason why Scotland could not produce this successfully but there is one major obstacle and that is the BBC themselves. London will not relinquish control easily and any programme served up will probably be intended either to fail to deliver what people want from a truly national and international news service or, more likely, will become just another tool for the Unionist Establishment to ram Westminster propaganda down our throats. Despite Stuart Cosgrove’s optimism, I foresee a programme which will be heavy on stories about the Royal family and the happenings at Westminster, with international news being restricted to items confirming how evil foreigners are. IN fact, when you put it like that, it does rather suggest that the narrow-minded, insular and parochial news is already being serve up by BBC London on a regular basis. Quite what difference a Scottish Six would make is difficult to identify, except that there would be a lot more stories about which Old Firm footballer / manager / ex-player / fan had said what about which other Old Firm footballer / manager / ex-player / fan. Quite honestly, I could do without that. So, if a Scottish Six does become a reality, I suspect I will stick to my current policy of never watching the BBC News because of its enormous propaganda content.