In the often excellent analysis by Prof Happer in the Herald yesterday, because it correctly identifies the bias in BBC Scotland as, for most staff, ‘structural’, ‘cultural‘ I’d say, I’d have to disagree with this:

Happer, who speaks extensively to BBC Scotland staff, said: “BBC Scotland journalists felt they couldn’t cover the referendum in the way they would have liked because of commands coming from London”

That’s a clear excuse, rewriting history.

In 2014, I was approached by two younger staff at BBC Scotland News and neither mentioned commands from London. They did both say that the then Head of News, John Boothman (above), scared them to death, explicitly told them what was acceptable and what was not, in line with a clear anti-independence stance.

Boothman, married to a Labour Minister, a media trainer for Scottish Labour, ‘moved on’ for bullying and latterly at the Times, ran a tight ship that ensured BBC Scotland did its very best to protect the Union. The culture he developed with others in the senior management, lives on to this day, no weaker for his departure.

Any regular watcher of the BBC 6 then Reporting Scotland sequence over the years, will often have seen the former put up data showing NHS Scotland to be doing better than NHS England and, subsequently, Reporting Scotland turning the other way or finding some single hospital death or infection by pigeons to counter it.

The senior staff at the BBC in England have little daily interest in Scotland. They have so much happening there to focus on. If those at the very top of the BBC, political appointees as they are, do have an interest in promoting biased reporting in Scotland, they appoint senior staff, checked by MI5 (a fact they acknowledge) to do that for them. No one at BBC HQ in London told reporters at BBC Scotland what to do in 2014, nor do they do so today. The current Head of News and editor of Reporting Scotland know just what to do.