Quote:However the level of almost hate of the English in some quarters during the recent Scottish referendum with demonstration outside BBC studios because they dared to ask Alex Salmond question he didn'tlike/couldn't anwer had some pretty nasty undertones
You know the referendum campaign had been running for some two years in Scotland, without any protests of note outside the offices of the BBC or others. The BBC is of course supposed to be (unlike the press) unbiased, and both BBC Scotland and STV worked hard to try and maintain impartiality.
So the campaign rumbled on, largely unnoticed by the BBC down south and indeed much of the English press. Naebody doon sooth was interestit.
But then suddenly, it actually looked as if there was a chance, a real chance of a YES! vote. In the closing weeks of campaign the BBC and other media outlets realised, that up until then unknown to them, that a referendum was actually taking place in Scotland on the future of the UK! And that flaming eck, Scotland might just go her own way!
So yes the BBC despatched it's English correspondents to report on the events happening in that wee country in the North of the UK (Scotland) of which presumably they had heard of and read of in the biased English press. Yup they made a right arse of it. But there was worse.......
So the usually astute and intelligent Nick Robinson allowed himself to be used as a tool of the Westminster government. He willingly posted a report on the BBC stating that Wee Eck refused to answer his question (repeatedly refused he told us), the BBC and Nick put together a brief clip depicting Alex refusing to answer a question, a question it turns out that Alex had already answered and indeed the BBC had already broadcast that answer.
So yes there was not only clear bias but also the dirtiest of dirty tricks.
I didn't personally think the BBC protests were a great idea, but then it wasn't up to me or anybody else, tens of thousands of people across Scotland were absolutely raging at the BBC's coverage, not BBC Scotland but the clueless correspondents from London and their lying bosses who appeared to be taking orders from Westminster . So people gathered at the BBC and protested........and protested........
I myself buy The Independent Monday to Friday and Scottish papers at the weekend. I got more and more pissed off at the Indy and it's clueless referendum coverage, and in fact wrote a letter complaining about one journalists clueless and insulting commentary, and they then published my letter.
In that letter I made the following point "xxxxxx ponders if Alex Salmond is about to throw in the towel", a somewhat absurd suggestion to say the least, but putting aside the fact that Mr Salmond does not actually lead the YES Campaign (that's Blair Jenkins job), I would ask xxxx if she could tell us when Mr Salmond's counterpart, the Prime Minister of The United Kingdom, David Cameron, is going to get off the starting blocks in his defence of The Union.
In an e-mail exchange with the journalist, the journalist stated that they thought that Cameron had not and would not get involved because he was "too English"
Perhaps here is a suggestion of racist Scots. So I made the following point;
Oh, Cameron. Yes he needs to keep his heid doon, I know. Not because he's too English, as was not Tony Wedgwood Benn also rather English, somewhat posh and yet was always most warmly welcomed in Scotland. David Cameron is not welcome in Scotland simply because he is a Tory.
Hey I still buy the Indy despite their abominable referendum coverage, though at least in today's edition their establishment commentator Andreas Whittam Smith makes the point that "The Scottish Referendum campaign was the practise of British democracy at it's best"
So lest be absolutely clear, the referendum campaign was about the future of Scotland, it's was about politics, it was about Scotland's political future, about a Scotland being continually dragged in a direction it does not want to go. There was no English hatred, there is no English hatred and of course there is no evidence of English hatred in that whole campaign. Oh and umm, not to mention that many of those whom I campaigned with were English born!
As for that Wee Eck and Nik Robinson moment, well watch and listen - make up your own mind;
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rHmLb-RIbrM#t=120