bbc-question-time-complaintBBC Question Time on Thursday 8th September at 9pm concentrated on the UK or British Labour Party Leadership debate. Please note the term ‘UK or British’. The UK or British Labour Party leader is in a position of authority over the party in Wales and in Scotland. The Labour Party in Wales or in Scotland is not in any way independent of the UK Labour Party so this debate was of equal relevance to viewers in Scotland and Wales as it was to those in England. Why then did the host announce proudly that the audience represented a balance of supporters of the Labour, Conservative, Liberal, Green and UKIP parties only, with no apparent representation of the SNP, the third-largest party at Westminster, or Plaid Cymru? There is no Labour party in Northern Ireland.
Remarkably, one of the questions was actually about the apparent death of the Labour Party in Scotland! Needless to say, no one was able to answer the question with the kind of insight you might expect from an SNP supporter.
Does this event simply represent another example of the British Broadcasting Corporation’s Anglo-centric mind-set? Perhaps most damaging to the BBC’s reputation in the rest of the UK, is the likelihood that this was no conspiracy, just a deeply ingrained tendency to equate England and Britain as being the same thing and to, consequently, treat licence-payers in Scotland and Wales with contempt.
Talking-up Scotland 