Two headlines sum it all up for us?
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BBC Wales and BBC Scotland react, both on the 9th September, to the latest Pisa results. The BBC Wales reporting is especially notable given these:
Imagine if Scotland had been bottom, how BBC Scotland would have covered.
Of course, the English figures are fiddled. They’ve just recruited image consultants to present their still dodgy data so that they don’t nearly get chucked off the whole thing as in 2022. See: https://talkingupscotlandtwo.com/2026/09/08/two-leading-academics-cast-doubt-on-englands-supposedly-better-pisa-scores-as-their-sample-is-revealed-to-be-skewed-toward-high-achievers-by-schools-gaming-the-system-again/
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Back to BBC Wales – In April this year, even as Labour in Wales faced defeat in election to the devolved parliament, BBC Wales maintained standards of balance, impartiality and fairness utterly alien to BBC Scotland:
On Friday 17th April 2026, only three weeks before the Scottish Parliament election on May 7th, 2026, a research team at Talking-up Scotland completed a 100-day survey of the BBC Wales and BBC Scotland’s inserts in BBC Breakfast, Monday to Friday 6 to 9am. Despite both operating within a dramatic political context with pro-independence parties, Plaid Cymru (PC) and SNP, for the first time likely to win in both countries, the coverage differed markedly in terms of the politicisation of reports and in the overall level of negativity know to influence voter behaviour.
A 2023 study published by Talking-up Scotland, prior to the recent surge in support for Plaid Cymru, had revealed BBC Scotland to be twice as likely as BBC Wales, to politicise negative reporting, to platform opposition voices and to ‘accuse’ the devolved government.1
A similar study, in the same year found that BBC Scotland was very significantly more likely than STV, to report bad news, by a ratio of more than 5 to 3, and was 3 times more likely to link bad news to the Scottish Government or ministers.2
Researchers have found that heavy consumption of negative news triggers the release of stress hormones and consequent increases in anxiety. 3,4,5 Studies of voting patterns have found that those with a ‘negativity bias’ derived from fear and anxiety about the world they live in, have a tendency to vote for conservative political groups often promising to prevent change or to return to earlier imagined more familiar times. 6,7,8
In 2014, research which covered the period from September 2012 to September 2013 which took in 730 hours of early evening TV news coverage broadcast by the BBC revealed the No campaign benefited by a ratio of 3:2 and personalised independence arguments as being the wishes of Alex Salmond, considered a divisive character by some. They appeared 35 times with no such personalisation of any of the No campaign’s arguments.9
This most recent study, of around 200 BBC Wales reports and 300 BBC Scotland reports, found, as in earlier studies many similarities between the two, of the kind some will argue is the nature of journalism – an emphasis in both on bad news and a tendency to try win audiences with moving tales of the lives of individuals who are in many ways similar to their audiences and with whom they might empathise.
BBC Scotland’s surface similarities, however, conceal sharp and hard differences in the underlying political messages being communicated and which researchers have shown will influence voter decisions.
First, BBC Scotland had significantly, nearly 50%, more negative reports, by 171 to 124, suggesting a darker, anxiety-inducing representations/constructions of life in Scotland, predisposing voters to prefer the more change-averse, conservative ideologies of the Unionist parties to the more radical, change-welcoming views of the SNP and Scottish Greens.
Second, more significantly, BBC Scotland was far more likely, by 39 to 9, to mention the Scottish Government in reports of problems facing their audiences. At times the Scottish Government or the SNP would be directly accused by an opposition politician of responsibility for events even though they were more accurately the direct responsibility of a health board, a chief of police or a local council. Repeated enough as any propagandist has long known since the time of Goebbels in Nazi Germany, this contaminates the SNP with apparent failures in, for example, schools, hospitals or in criminal events. BBC Wales did this rarely, 9 times in 200 reports.
Finally, BBC Scotland were three times more likely, 14 to 5 times, to report positively on the achievements of the UK Government.
Taken together, we have here evidence of unbalanced, inaccurate and deceptive, reporting of the news in Scotland, over a very prolonged period, which has played a significant role in suppressing support for the SNP and in particular, among BBC Scotland’s more mature audience.
That this is unchanged in BBC Scotland but not yet apparent in BBC Wales, despite the recent nationalist threat to their future, suggests a deep culture which takes years to embed and to become so resilient that it can quickly condition, if necessary, new staff
Sources:
- https://talkingupscotlandtwo.com/2023/06/02/new-research-finds-bbc-scotland-is-twice-as-likely-to-politicise-negative-reporting-to-platform-opposition-voices-and-to-accuse-the-devolved-government/
- https://talkingupscotlandtwo.com/2023/06/30/research-bbc-scotland-news-constructs-a-far-more-anxious-and-conservative-world-than-stv-news-does/
- https://patient.info/news-and-features/is-watching-the-news-bad-for-your-mental-health
- https://www.apa.org/monitor/2022/11/strain-media-overload
- https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9135112/
- https://www.psychologytoday.com/gb/blog/mind-in-the-machine/201612/fear-and-anxiety-drive-conservatives-political-attitudes
- https://www.apa.org/news/apa/2020/fear-motivator-elections
- chrome-extension://efaidnbmnnnibpcajpcglclefindmkaj/https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/158607199.pdf
- https://newsnetscotland.com/8598-broadcasters-favouring-no-campaign-according-to-new-academic-study/
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BBC Scotland never frames anything in a positive light that happens within Scotland – and also disguises the true intentions of the many thugs and gullible morons in Scotland who want to “stop the boats” (as in the ones landing on the English coastline) in what BBC Scotland refers to as “protests or “rallies” in Scotland”.
For example today on the BBC website on the Scotland main page of their website is this headline:
“Hundreds attend Glasgow Green anti-immigration and counter protests“.
The article states that “Hundreds of people have gathered in Glasgow for an anti-immigration rally and associated counter protest“.
“rally” ?
Yeh that sounds about right, not.
The BBC article then stated that:
“The Pink Ladies organised their event at Glasgow Green, prompting opposing groups, including Stand Up To Racism (SUTR), to arrange a counter protest”.
Stand up to racism wrote this on Facebook about the Pink Ladies:
“Far-right women’s group Pink Ladies slammed for supporting Tate brothers ahead of Glasgow protest“
“‘Campaigners at Stand Up to Racism (SUTR) highlighted the group’s support for the Tate brothers, saying: “We exposed the hypocrisy of the Pink Ladies Glasgow as they shared content from the Tate brothers, the leaders of toxic masculinity and the ‘manosphere’”.
“The Pink Ladies pretend to stand up for women’s and girl’s safety, then they approvingly share content from the world’s ultimate misogynists.”
“Tate and his brother Tristan – both of whom face a large number of charges for serious crimes against women – including rape.”.
“Oppose the Pink Ladies tomorrow”.
Then the BBC in their article also wrote that:
Ch Sup Stevie Dolan said: “People have a right to peaceful protest and today’s policing operation was focused on ensuring the safety of the public, preventing crime and disorder, and minimising disruption.”.
(However would that “right to peaceful protest” exclude those who hold placards supporting Palestine and condemning Israel ?)
The BBC article also stated that:
Prominent figures on the Scottish right such as Reform UK deputy leader in Scotland Thomas Kerr, Reform councillor Audrey Dempsey and online personality Craig Houston attended the Pink Ladies event.
“online personality Craig Houston” ?
“Personality” ? – I think many others would beg to differ .
THe BBC said that “Kerr said he was invited by organisers to attend” and had come to “hear what working-class women in particular are saying and adding that counter protesters were “extremists“.
(Kerr is a waste of space if ever there was one.)
(As is Dempsey, to verify that fact then check out the SKY News article in October 2025 with the headline “Put them in camps and deport them’: Sky News gets rare access inside Reform UK meeting”)
Dempsey told SKY News ‘Scottish’ correspondent Connor Gillies that “immigrants were trying to inflict their culture on other people here like Sharia law” when challenged on that she then responded “”Do you not have conversations in the street? You just have to take a walk through Glasgow city centre on any given day” when asked for evidence on that she said ” there was “stacks of evidence online” and when questioned if she believed “they are coming to take over,” the Reform councillor said: “I don’t quite know what I believe at this moment.” (see another complete waste of space and so representative of a Reform UK pretend politician).
Also for Kerr it seems that anyone not promoting hate is an “extremist“.
However he should also note that your actual real “working class women” do not support misogynistic pigs like the Tate brothers , but the Pink Ladies and also Nigel Farage allegedly seem to.
As Thomas Kerr’s HQ (actual real) leader (for now that is) , Nigel Farage, once described “Andrew Tate as an “important voice for young men“.
The charges against Tate including charges of rape, human trafficking, and promoting extreme misogyny.
So does Farage wish that Andrew Tate would lead “young men” by his, Tate’s, (bad) example on how he has allegedly treated women ?
The BBC article also wrote that Kerr said this about the counter protestors:
“The people who are there are trying to shout down working-class people who finally have a voice”
“They’re really, really angry about what’s happening in our city and rather than listening to these working-class women, what this mob over there are doing is lecturing them, telling them what they must feel”
(Pot , Kettle, Black surely from Kerr)
The BBC also wrote that Kerr also said:
“I think that’s ridiculous”.
“I think the extremists in this argument are the people trying to silence other people rather than allowing people to have their democratic right and the freedoms to say what they need to say.“
Sorry did Thomas Kerr really say that the counter protestors were “trying to silence other people rather than allowing people to have their democratic right and the freedoms to say what they need to say” ?
Well funnily enough Thomas Kerr (this year) was accused by many people of “wasting police time.” , that was after he, Kerr, “reported the high-profile Scottish human rights lawyer Aamer Anwar to the police for hate speech following an anti-immigration rally.
Police Scotland subsequently threw out Kerr’s complaint, stating no crime had occurred”.
Kerr posted this in July 2026:
“I have reported Aamer Anwar to Police Scotland for the speech he gave on Saturday 25th July 2026 in Glasgow Green. His comments go beyond robust political debate and, I believe, have the effect of encouraging hostility towards a section of Scots based on their political views, nationality, ethnicity and cultural identity. In particular, it is abhorrent that he found it acceptable to describe political campaigners as “terrorists” and to make comments on questioning their culture and religion. His words, I have no doubt, will contribute to increased hostility and community tensions and I hope Police Scotland investigate the matter fully”.
Meanwhile we have him describing those “other people” (counter protestors) as “extremists” , as in those whom he is clearly trying to “silence” , when they are actually those who wish to have the “democratic right and freedoms to say what they need to say” as in similar rights that Kerr states he himself and also all of the “thugs and gullible morons” that he supports should have.
Someone responded to that above post by Kerr in them writing this:
“This is from Reform’s Scottish manifesto, which Thomas Kerr was elected on. Want to guess which act he is accusing Aamer Anwar of breaching? Hypocrisy in action”?
The person said that part of the Reform manifesto stated this:
“We will reduce the police workload so that they can concentrate on solving the crimes that matter to people. We will abolish the SNP’s intrusive, ideological motivated Hate Crime and Public Order (Scotland) Act, restoring free speech and allowing police to focus on real crime”.
So yes indeed it is sheer “hypocrisy in action” and also a classic example of ‘do as my party says and not as I now appear to be doing, as in that same action which I am telling others not to do“.
TBH Kerr probably does not know what his own party have stated in their manifesto , if he does then it is likely that he thinks he and his party can have different rules (exemptions) from all others , which then allows them , Reform UK, to always be so blatantly hypocritical.
Mind you TBH the BBC also seems to operate different rules for different parties in opposition to the SNP, hence why they publish (far too many) articles like the above where they seem to choose their words (far too) carefully. Thus why they are always creating false impressions and so then diminishing the underlining real problem in their articles.
Liz S
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