Who, with conviction, could claim that this is what is happening now?

I offer just two examples: I was listening to live coverage of Prime Minister’s Questions on the radio recently. As soon as Scottish Labor leader Anas Sarwar stood up, the BBC pulled out of its coverage and we heard a political correspondent repeat verbatim the SNP/Tory exchange we had just heard. So much for diversity!

Secondly, personally, I have never heard a politician between 8am and 8.30am on Good Morning Scotland – presumably the peak time for listeners – who is neither an SNP politician nor someone employed or supportive of the Scottish Government .

It’s really a bit too much to ask to hear John Swinney on Drivetime only to find that he’s back the next morning, during the slot I mentioned, generally commenting on the bad news that Nicola Sturgeon carefully dodged.

Surely Andrew Neil was right when he said it was time for the Scottish media to develop a backbone and hold the Scottish Government and everyone in public office to account. The absence of such objectivity hardly suggests that we in Scotland live in a democratic society.

Sir Tom Clarke, former Shadow Secretary of State for Labor for Scotland

Brian Wilson is right, BBC Scotland and STV rarely report serious problems, especially if they make the SNP/Greens look bad.

It’s not like they can’t do it. Yesterday I watched Sophie Raworth give Nicola Sturgeon a hard time over Covid restrictions and the Indyref2 date, and Martin Geissler brilliantly mastered Patrick Harvie’s undated and unfunded green transport nirvana and the brought back here and now potholes, broken and undelivered ferries and poor rural bus service. He also gave Scottish Conservative Chief Whip Stephen Kerr a fair hearing.

But the main news programs, audience 800,000, are high-end versions of my local newspaper’s ‘around the clubs’ and ‘what’s up’ sections, delivered in the seductively robotic ‘please , take your change and thank you for shopping” from my local supermarket to.

No wonder SNP is easy. Other than perhaps 500,000 people who read the newspapers and their social media pages, the other nearly 4,000,000 Scottish voters have no idea what’s going on, apart from Boris’ latest shenanigans.

Allan Sutherland, Stonehaven, Aberdeenshire

The time was when the homebound sports watcher could watch the big football or rugby matches ‘for free’ on the BBC or ITV.

Fast forward a few years, and a fairly pricey package that includes Sky Sports meant you wouldn’t miss much, provided you had the cash. Fast forward again, and you have to check very carefully who owns the streaming rights for what you want to watch.

It could be Amazon Prime (for Six Nations rugby), it could be BT, sometimes Channel 4. In the future, it could be a Russian oligarch or a prince in Saudi Arabia. It might not be covered at all, as happened recently for the Celtic v Hibs game, or in rugby, Edinburgh v Brive, a postponed match which Edinburgh won 66-3 with ten tries for Edinburgh. It would have been entertaining for Edinburgh fans, but there is no indication that STV is able or willing to fill the gaps.

What we see is public service television disappearing before our eyes, led by sport, with government encouragement.

Crawford Mackie, Edinburgh

In her comment (your report, 22 January) on the recent Savanta ComRes opinion poll suggesting that 78% of Scottish voters think Boris Johnson should quit in favor of Partygate, SNP MP Kirsten Oswald failed to mention what I thought the most striking feature of the poll. Namely that, for all the legitimate anger towards Mr Johnson, opinion on Scottish independence was broadly unchanged at 50/50.

KW McKay, Carrbridge, Inverness-shire

I am glad to see that more people are taking notice of the Scottish Government’s new smoke and heat detector legislation which will come into force on 1 February (your report, 22 January). It’s moving forward, with little to no thought of the practicalities or implications, but we’re told there won’t be any penalties for non-compliance, which seems rather vague to me. Since many families are probably struggling to make ends meet right now, this will, understandably, not be seen as a priority. However, non-compliance will have consequences in the future when it comes to home insurance and the buying and selling of houses, for example.

I have (reluctantly) complied with the new legislation and am contesting the fact that I had to pay VAT. Several months ago I wrote to Alex Cole-Hamilton MSP about this and he referred the matter to Cabinet Secretary Shona Robison who to date has not had the courtesy to respond. This could serve as a small incentive and encourage people to comply with the legislation if it were exempt from VAT.

One could be forgiven for thinking that Rishi Sunak must be a financial magician because despite Covid and an absent ‘Brexit Bonus’ (which is unlikely to ever materialise), “the UK has the fastest growing economy speed of the G7”. How many times have we heard Boris Johnson and his cronies make this statement unchallenged by supposedly objective political commentators, not to mention the supposedly impartial BBC program hosts who are very quick to dispute the statements of politicians in the SNP and labor at every opportunity.

The salient fact is that among the G7, the UK, despite the Prime Minister’s dithering and delays in introducing proper preventative health measures, suffered the biggest fall in GDP in 2020, so it is not no surprise that, relatively, the UK economy is now growing faster.

However, this recent growth still represents a comparative failure rather than an overall success, as only Japan has done worse economically during the pandemic, but Japan, with nearly double the population, has recorded fewer 20,000 Covid-19 related deaths as opposed to the UK’s catastrophic figure of over 150,000.

Perhaps if the Chancellor had focused his magical talents on quickly achieving a more shrewd balance between health and economic considerations, the UK might not have fared so badly economically and thousands, if not tens of thousands of lives could have been saved. Surely, the UK’s boasts of leading the world in any of these fundamental aspects of government should at the very least be challenged by those who wish to present political news honestly and professionally.

Stan Grodynski, Longniddry, East Lothian

Following Claire Mack’s article (Perspective, January 20), the saying goes: “Those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat the same mistakes. Scotland has long been an exporter of oil and gas and looks set to become a net exporter of renewable energy as private developers scramble to install new wind farms off our coast at knockdown prices .

Crown Estate Scotland (CES) has announced results under the ScotWind rental round, with a potential of 25 gigawatts (GW) of electricity. That’s almost four times Scotland’s total requirements, with each GW potentially worth £1bn to the Scottish economy.

Is the lion’s share of our renewable energy profits going overseas? The 17 selected offers span the world. Scotland’s renewable energy will generate huge profits for multinationals and foreign governments. Last year England allowed only a third more than CES for an annual payment of £800million, meaning our wind power is worth just 7% of England’s. Scottish companies will receive a very small share of the profits

There is a lesson in how to manage a natural resource for the benefit of its inhabitants. While Scotland lost, Norway turned its limited resources into a huge sovereign wealth fund worth around £200,000 for each citizen.

Oil and gas workers face unemployment. Offshore wind farm leases must be tied to job creation. If Holyrood doesn’t change course, is it a sequel called “The Cheviot, The Stag and the Big, Big Wind?”

DW Lowden, Mannofield, Aberdeen

About wind farms, Elizabeth Buchan-Hepburn and Mary Thomas lament like spoiled children who have to share their treats with others (Letters, January 22). Whatever the subject, if the Nationalists don’t get their way, the Union or the Westminster government is to blame. Never mind that Scotland benefits from the Union in so many other ways – sterling is the first that comes to mind – nationalists must always have a grievance, always a complaint. This introverted, selfish and Anglophobic attitude is as depressing as the mindset of Little Englanders or Trump supporters and unlikely to persuade us Scots to take a much broader view of our country.

Martin Foreman, Edinburgh

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