The first one was entitled, “Independence the divisive issue in Scotland's future” and the following question was asked of the “Unionist” panelists:
WHAT NEW POWERS DO THE UNIONIST PARTY PANELLISTS THINK THE SCOTTISH PARLIAMENT SHOULD HAVE?
MC*: I have long argued that the Scottish Parliament should have much greater financial powers.
NSte: Clearly, greater financial powers is the main thing, including oil revenue. That is what we have always argued for.
MF: I'm a bit of a Tory heretic on this issue. I wrote a paper in 1998 arguing that the Scottish Parliament should have more powers over financial affairs, but I don't want to go too far in case I get a handbagging tomorrow (from Annabel Goldie].
TD: My personal gripe is over broadcasting. I would like to see broadcasting powers brought to Scotland. The BBC in Scotland is very poor and Radio Scotland is a national embarrassment.
NStu: I would not disagree with that.
Oh good, so we’re all singing from the same hymn sheet on this one then obviously, these "Unionists" to a man all want more independence from the Union- no wonder Ms Sturgeon was in full agreement.
*Nstu: Nicola Sturgeon, the deputy First Minister,
MC: Malcolm Chisholm, Labour's constitutional spokesman,
MF: Murdo Fraser, deputy leader of the Scottish Tories,
NSte: Nicol Stephen, the Scottish Lib Dems' leader.
5 comments:
Devolving the regulation of broadcasting is nonsense. When the SNP support it, it's simply a method of gaining their own propaganda machine.
Most of what BBC Scotland puts out is shite - not just Radio Scotland, which nobody listens to. To be frank, I'd abolish Radio Scotland in a second - and I doubt many people would notice or care.
BBC Scotland is already vastly overfunded as a regional BBC office - increasing its funding would only serve to damage the central BBC, and separating it entirely would simply leave us with a second-rate broadcaster with a tiny revenue and a parochial outlook. No thanks.
What a poverty of imagination and pathetic cringe the above poster exhibits. Your reference to Scotland as a region shows all we need to know. Even the die hard unionist has to admit that Scotland is nation, they’re aren’t a great deal of British Nationalists who refuse to accept Scotland as a nation.
As the post indicates, whilst independence is either coming or not depending on ones interpretation, Scottish society is strongly moving towards a national parliament of significant powers. This process has been vast accelerated by the rise of the SNP, but is by no means the only catalyst. Some hard line Unionists clearly haven’t come to accept this as a fact. Undeniably even main stream Scottish Unionism, such as it is, is quickly adopting a position of a beefed up parliament and screeching further along Dalyell’s junctionless motorway.
As a side I’m surprised you haven’t mentioned Salmonds battle cry of common sense in Parliament yesterday.
In case you haven’t read it:
"That we alone among the oil producers of the world, producing ten times – ten times – our consumption of hydrocarbons at the moment, should be faced with an extraordinary position that while every oil producer, through sovereign funds and the build-up of huge sums of capital, has the resources available to power their economy into the future, what's left for the people of Scotland is paying sky-high prices at the pumps and the industries of Scotland facing escalating costs.
"A bittersweet irony? A massive national outrage – and it's time we did something about it."
Actually anonymous (obviously cringing) the big complaint about BBC Scotland is that is UNDERfunded. Particularly the lack of work commissioned by/for it.
There has been a great hiatus in Scotland about the so-called "Scottish Six". There is of course definately a lack of Scottish programming on the UK network on all channels. This did not always used to be the case.
Personally my favoured option would be to set up alongside the present arrangements a separate Scottish Broadcasting Service (SBS). Wales, England etc can have one as well.
So what would the SBS be modelled on? Well my idea comes from Germany. I will explain the German system.
Germans get basically three terrestrial TV channels. These are ARD, ZDF and the "third" - the regional channel.
In Germany broadcasting is based on the principle of federalism. Each state government decides what the region should do. Some states like Bavaria, Hessen, Nord Rhine-Westalphia choose just to have a state only broadcaster.
Others like in the case of Baden-Wuttemburg and Rhineland-Pfalz choose to share a common broadcaster (South West German Broadcasting. The big daddy is the North German broadcasting which provides for Schweslig-Holstein, Hamburg, Lower Saxony and Mecklenburg-West Pomerania. It also provides programming to Bremen whose government pays money to it for some programming whilst Bremen retains its own broadcasting service.
The third is purely a regional channel providing programmes for the region with news for the station's catchment area as well as regional news within the catchment area. For example Bavaria broadcasting will broadcast about what is going on in Bavaria and the world from a Bavarian perspective before cutting to regional news studios in Munich, Nuremburg etc.
ARD is a federation of the regional broadcasters. It provides a common channel for Germans with regional opt-outs for regional station news.
It is headquartered in Frankfurt. ARD programmes are produced jointly or on their own by the regional broadcasters. Of course there are imports (dubbed in German) and independent productions.
ZDF is pretty much the same formula except that there is no regional opt outs. It is based in Mainz.
Now I can hear the sneer "if German TV is so good why have we never heard of it". Well peeps it is because the average Brit with their language skills is fucked that they are going to pay for broadcasting in another language other than English (christ there is enough crubmling about Gaelic and Welsh programming).
From what I have seen German TV is of good quality. A bit serious by British standards but that is to be expected from the Germans.
Being big does not necessary mean better. Tell me how many Canadian Broadcating Corporation programmes do you see on UK TV? I can recall "The Kids of De Grassi Street" and "De Grassi Junior High" when I was in school but little else (and for those who remember those programmes you probably thought they were American!)
I would like the SBS to be modeled on the Bavarian channel model. They are good programmes.
I would like SBS to have two channels. A Scotland-wide channel and a regionalised channel so to tackle any problems of a central belt bias.
How is this to funded? That is another question although a share in the licence fee, advertising and state subsidy would not go amiss.
If you have a problem with Scottish parochialism then do not read Scottish newspapers - even the Tartan editions of the English ones. We are obviously inferior and everything should be done through the prism of the hip and happening city in the south-east corner of England.
(Even Alan Cochrane complains about the London-centricity of the BBC when comes to news - boy gets knocked down in Peckham - small beer anywhere else but in London frontline news for the BBC!)
Just a thought to anonymous #2 about the correlation between oil and pump prices.
You can have all the oil you want mate, but you need refining capacity to make it into gasoline, and this is something that Scotland, and the UK as a whole, is severely lacking. It should also be noted, by the same poster, that Scotland cannot regulate the price of oil, which, incidentally, is the main ingredient in gasoline, so high oil prices and lack of refining capacity are two of the largest causes of the high pump prices, which are shared by much of the world I might add.
Paul
You miss the point completely. Don't know how you could but you do.
Aberdonian
Couldn't agree more, but I would have done so in one paragraph right enough ;) The murders and stabbings of teenagers in Scotland are by and large completely overlooked.
oneil
You can only beat what is put in front of you. Until the Unionists can come up with some kind of credible opposition..................well?
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