Vote! On the BBC/First Minister spat

Another Saturday, another tale of nonsense from the BBC.

This weekend, the state broadcaster has given us two upon which to grind our teeth.

First, the astonishing decision to axe the Janice Forsyth show from Saturday morning schedules.  Now, I would admit that I only occasionally listen to it   It’s on at an awkward time for me, I’m usually out the door by then, busy with bairns’ stuff.  But when I do get the chance, well it’s pretty much perfect Saturday morning listening.  Great choons, a witty and articulate presenter, interesting guests, good chat.

But the Saturday morning schedule does seem a bit jumbled.  News review followed by sport review followed by a magazine show.  The mix doesn’t quite gel, although maybe it doesn’t have to.  Maybe if BBC Scotland was thinking about the diverse needs of its potential audiences, the mix hits the mark.

And it’s this issue that bothers me most about the decision.  Where is the diversity in BBC Scotland’s approach?  The plan is shockingly two-dimensional:  chat through the day, music at night.  Anything falling between those stools will be jettisoned.  Our brains are so unsophisticated it would appear, that unless the BBC helpfully puts everything into wee boxes for us, we cannot cope.  Words fail me.

I also can’t help suspecting that the BBC is guilty of some pretty unsophisticated thinking of its own – and it’s also fairly unsavoury.  What kind of chat are we likely to get on a daytime schedule that is already dominated by sport – football in particular – and male voices?  Hmm?

More innane wittering on about football?  More blokes gathered in a cupboard joshing and puffing themselves and their opinions up?

Don’t get me wrong – I like my football, I love pottering about on a wet Saturday with my radio tuning in to matches.  It is not unknown in my house for all the radios to be tuned to different matches simultaneously – it can be exhilirating if also confusing.

But that isn’t the point.  It is simply unacceptable for the state broadcaster, paid for by the public purse, to exclude one half of the population from its daytime Saturday schedule.  There are few enough female voices on Radio Scotland these days – even though there is no shortage of excellent female journalists and broadcasters in this country – without a whole day being allowed to become male dominated.  Moreover, since when did the whole population “like” sport and only want sport from one half of the weekend schedule?

I may, of course, be getting ahead of myself.  Maybe the slot will be filled by a chat magazine show that discusses “women’s issues” – a kind of Caledonian women’s hour.  Now that would be interesting.  Or a politics discussion show with only women participating – again, an interesting concept.  Or at the very least maybe it will be a show fronted by a woman talking about stuff other than sport.  But I hae ma doots.

In any event, this, and the storm of protest on Twitter this morning, is a shot across BBC Scotland’s bows.  If the plan was to fill the Saturday morning airwaves with more innane football drivel and remove a woman from the slot and replace her with a man, well they might want to tear it up and think again.

But this is not the only example of bizarre BBC-ery (it almost deserves a noun in its own right;  for meaning, think fuckwittery).  After arranging for the First Minister, Alex Salmond, to appear on its big build-up to the Calcutta Cup match this evening, the BBC has pulled the plug.  Apparently, it’s too politically sensitive a time, too close to the local government elections (still more than three months away) to have a Scottish politician on the telly talking about rugby and what the match means to Scotland.

Now, those who object to any politician getting involved in talking about sport or muscling in on any big sporting occasion have a point.  There is a principled case for keeping it all very separate and therefore, avoiding the possibility of stumbling into delicate territory.  But a blogpost on the pros and cons of the relationship between sport and politics is for another day.

And this would be fine if the BBC was in any way principled about this but it isn’t.  There have been plenty of times when politicians have been allowed, nay encouraged to be involved in big sporting occasions.  Olympics anyone?  Indeed, it’s not just politicians:  look at how fawning everyone is when a Royal deigns to mix it with the hoi polloi on mass participation activity.  Just like the Royals, politicians do this cos it’s populist and popular.  And the BBC has always enabled it – until now.

The final point is that Alex Salmond is not just any other politician.  He is the elected First Minister of Scotland, our highest public representative and it is entirely within his job description to appear on the telly on the day of a big sporting occasion and talk about his hopes for a Scotland win but probably – as he would have done – about what such an occasion brings to Scotland and means economically and socially to Edinburgh, in particular.  Some may not like it because it’s Alex Salmond getting to comment on all of this, but that is his role, just as it would be Johann Lamont’s if she were First Minister.

The excuses trotted out by the BBC are paltry and small-minded and belittle Scotland.  There is a place for our First Minister, whatever his or her hue, to be part of the coverage of today, until and unless it changes its policy and produces a blanket ban on ALL politicians and public figures (including Royalty) appearing on its platforms in connection with big sporting occasions.

But maybe, you don’t agree?  Then vote!

And in the interests of fairness, here is the question framed differently

Scotland the big loser in BBC Scotland leaders’ debate

I had intended to write a pithy, witty post about BBC Scotland’s party leaders’ debate.  But it was so pedestrian, I was struggling to fill my pre-ordained categories.  So I’ll have a rant instead.

For all that Labour and the SNP have stolen each other’s policy clothes during this campaign – Labour far more and far less cannily, it has to be said – the Scottish media don’t do us any favours either.  For they have condensed this election’s key talking points into a handful of areas.  Tonight’s topics which came from audience questions were free bus passes and their affordability;  public sector jobs;  tuition fees;  independence and the referendum;  sectarianism;  renewable energy;  and their autobiography titles.  And possibly A N other subject that I missed because some of us were having a twitter debate about ties.  It was that good.

Where, I wonder, are the real issues that people have said are the most important in this election?  Yes, jobs came up in last night’s debate – it was Iain Gray’s mantra throughout – but nothing of substance or detail, making the leaders explain what they were going to do to enable jobs to be created.  The focus was purely on public sector jobs, because of course, that’s where we all work.  And for every public sector worker thankful at the parties doing all they can to protect their employment and terms and conditions, there’s another private or third sector worker – or self-employed person – resentful at the same lack of attention being paid to their often more precarious positions.

Both Labour and the SNP have BIG commitments on youth employment, but they need to be pinned down on the detail.  What jobs, where, and how will these be created?  Will they be sustainable, on a living wage, and how do they ensure apprenticeships lead to full time careers?  Apprenticeships in what exactly – stuff we do now or stuff we need for the future?  How do these tie in with college courses currently offered?  Does the country actually need more hairdressers, nursery nurses, media graduates and sports coaches?

Poverty – Scotland’s real shame which dare not speak its name in this election.  Ah, but we’re all squeezed middle or hardworking family or struggling pensioners now.  Poverty is on the increase in Scotland, the gap between the haves and have nots grows, the numbers in fuel and food poverty are increasing rapidly, and nope, no one has anything to say on it.

Education – no, not bloody tuition fees, the bits that affect all children.  There have been skirmishes on class sizes, buildings, teachers, the curriculum but bugger all on the only bit that matters, our children’s learning experience and attainment.  The education system fails 20% of our children, and has done throughout devolution.  The most marginalised children are still just that; children with needs, either through disability or circumstance, are getting scant support to succeed.  Local authorities have a legal duty to ensure that every child fulfils his or her potential.   With pressure on budgets, how will the parties ensure this happens?  And to return to the issue that grabs them, how will they ensure that more young people from poorer backgrounds get to go to university, for improvement here has been mighty slow during the years of plenty?

Early years – everyone (including the politicians) agrees that the most important thing we can do for our future is invest hugely in children, nurturing and supporting them and their families in the earliest years.  All the parties have actually made significant commitments in this vital area of social policy but we have heard very little about them in election coverage.   Yet, what could be more resonant than investing in Scotland’s future generations?  But no, not capable of being digested in a single soundbite nor explained in a couple of lines, so the media are just not interested.  And they wonder why we are turning off and tuning out in our droves?

Health – for all the record investment and protected budgets, Scotland is still the sick man of Europe.  How do the parties intend to tackle the obesity crisis that doctors warn will engulf services in years to come?  What are we doing to prevent and relieve multiple sclerosis, Scotland’s very own cluster disease?  Mental health services?  Infant mortality?  Men’s reluctance to seek early medical advice and treatment?  Alcohol misuse?  The NHS has had targets for breastfeeding and alcohol treatment orders and failed on both – why and what will the parties do to change that in the next four years?

Transport – the roads are in a shocking mess; pavements are worse; we need more and better train services;  the lack of a high speed rail link to England threatens our economic competitiveness;  for every air link established, another one folds;  and local bus services are under threat as subsidies dry up.  We live in a country that makes it hard to get from A to B -  where the maxim that it is better to travel most certainly does not apply.  Yet, sound infrastructure is vital to our society and our economy on so many levels.  No one want to discuss any of that?

So glass half full – there’s still time, there’s one more leaders’ debate to come, maybe these issues will feature and maybe we will get some vision as well as detail from each of the leaders.  But actually our glass is bound to be half empty.  None of this will feature and all we will get is the same old sterile stuff that has been offered up throughout the campaign.

There is a cosy consensus that operates in political and media circles about what the big issues of the day are, but it ignores the reality of people’s lives and concerns, and only serves to emphasise the gulf between the governing and chattering classes and the rest of us.   Come Thursday night, thought, the very same people will be wringing their hands in woe at the continuing low turnout for Scottish elections.

Occasionally, the burd despairs.

I’m voting for COSLA

At last, we get some common sense, vision and straight talking in this election campaign but alas, none of it is coming from the yins standing for election. 

Ah, COSLA if only you were a political party with PatWatters4FM…

Positively Local, COSLA’s manifesto for public sector reform, comes complete with a route map to reform that the burd has cut out and put up on her wall.  I don’t agree with every proposal and contention in the manifesto – au naturelement - but by and large, this is the most sensible document to have been produced in this election.  And just to emphasise the message, gun slinger Watters came out with both pistols blazing this week, accusing the parties of feeding the electorate a political junk food diet, offering options that are “short term, unsatisfying and leave a bad taste”.  Not just the best manifesto, but the best soundbite so far too.

The parties are in a bidding war for votes, scattering big numbers around like confetti, and it is a game that BBC Scotland has taken up with gusto.  Plonk 25 random manifesto commitments before the electorate and ask which are the priority.  Come on down, folks, the input is right…

Thus, top of the poll, came Labour’s pledge to cut the time someone waits to see a specialist about suspected cancer from four weeks to two.  Okay, so it happens.  Then what?  You wait months for treatment only to find it isn’t the best treatment available because all the money has been spent at the initial stage.  And what about preventing people from getting cancer in the first place?  Who cares?  The state can fix it for you.

Next up, the SNP’s and the Conservatives’ pledge to keep more police on the streets.  What, even if it makes not a jot of difference to crime rates and does absolutely nothing to address the causes of crime?   No takers, then, for Superintendent John Carnochan’s contention (Violence Reduction Unit Scotland) that if we want to prevent crime and address its root causes in our communities, we should be investing in 1000 health visitors instead of 1000 police officers – that Tory pledge languishes way down the list of voter must-haves.

“The real question is what difference extra police or teachers or doctors make in terms of individuals’ lives.  We should be less focused on how quickly an ill person sees a consultant than on why so many people are becoming ill in the first place;  less interested in the number of police constables we have than in the type of policing they have to do.”  Oh, COSLA how many ways do I love thee?

And then we get a series of want more, pay less proposals – everything free at the point of need, or rather want.  Dear god, what planet are we all living on?  If we refuse to create a sustainable local tax base, if we keep the rotten system we have but even then, take significant parts of the population out of contributing to it, how on earth do people think we are going to pay for more apprenticeships, free higher education, prescriptions and bus passes? 

Despite what the politicians are suggesting at this election, there ain’t no pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.  The Scottish budget has taken only its first cut – the next two are much more severe, with rock bottom being hit only by 2014.  The bottom line is that we can no longer afford to do what we have always done and no political party has been prepared to stand up and say this at any point in the campaign.  Shame on them all.

Our political masters will point to BBC Scotland’s poll and say, see our strategy is right, we are giving the masses what they want.  And where they lead, we follow. Which is enough to make the burd weep. 

COSLA is absolutely right:  “only an outcomes focused approach to reform will improve public service delivery in Scotland”.  But because politicians refuse to articulate what this actually means, because parties cannot be bovvered to do the hard work of leading this debate, of working out how to educate the public in ways they would understand, they have resorted to type.  It’s all about the inputs, big, shiny incomprehensible numbers that make people’s eyes glaze over but instinctively, they want.  

So, the parties continue to promise jam today and tomorrow, to be paid for by a little bit of fiddling round the fringes of public sector reform, while extracting yet more mysterious efficiencies from the existing system.  It is a mendacious approach that simply will not work.  As COSLA points out: “Public sector reform needs to be about whole systems; about funding arrangements and income;  about governance, duties and powers;  about the principles of democratic accountability;  and only then about boundaries and structures.”

The refusal by the parties to conduct the campaign in such terms is troubling.  It would appear that the concept of political leadership is deid;  in its place, we have a bread and circuses approach to politics that will result in us all – but most especially the most vulnerable in our society – paying a terrible price.  For there is no way that all they are promising can be delivered – either the parties know this and are hiding it from the electorate, or they really don’t know and think we can carry on spending.  I’m not sure which is the more worrying.

But whoever wins this election should beware:  no-one likes to be misled.  Being elected by saying one thing, and spending four years doing quite another, might result in a very high political price being paid indeed.