This one is not directly related to the cause of an English parliament but we think it may be of interest to our supporters and friends anyway.

BBC Newswatch have run a special from Edinburgh to find out what Scottish viewers think of BBC news.

Turns out the Scottish viewers think that the BBC news is far too English. One viewer describes the BBC as the EBC – the English Broadcasting Corporation.

Please take a look – the whole thing is only 11 minutes long.

Here are some snippets from the programme:

• News coverage on the so-called UK news programmes is like listening to news about a foreign country for many smaller nations of the UK. Post devolution the truth is that England probably needs its own national news programmes; and in additio0n there should be reports on international news and UK news which genuinely affects the whole of the UK.
• I notice that not much Scottish news gets on the News Channel. I thought the BBC was supposed to reflect the British Isles, not just little England.
• The BBC does a disservice to the nations of the UK, other than England, by referring to the riots as UK riots, when in fact they’re restricted to English cities. Would the EBC have the same headline if the riots were in Scotland only?

CEP members, supporters and friends will find it laughable that the BBC has been described as the EBC when the BBC goes out of its way to avoid saying England in the same way UK politicians do.

And one of a more of a specifically political nature:

• Just been watching the main BBC1 News at Six – first 15 minutes was taken up with health and education matters which have no relevance here in Scotland.so many programmes for instance Question Time are becoming irrelevant here as there is seldom an SNP panel member even though the SNP are the government in Scotland

The general thrust is that that the BBC haven’t caught up with the consequences of devolution – and who could argue with that? Take the previous point – 15 minutes about English health and education – where they even presented as being English issues? The BBC has been and continues to be very bad at indicating which issues are English and which are UK wide.

Newswatch invited John Boothman, BBC Scotland’s head of head of news and current affairs to answer Scottish viewers questions.

So what about England? And how about a Newswatch special about how the BBC handles English news – anyone with a spare moment might like to get in touch with Newswatch to suggest just that. If enough of us make the effort we might get them to make an English version of the programme.

0370 010 6676 (Standard landline charges apply) or newswatch@bbc.co.uk

Some things you might like to consider for your correspondence (although please use your own words where possible):

• There is BBC Scotland, BBC Wales and  BBC Northern Ireland but no BBC England
• Routine conflation of England/Britain in terms of political reporting
• No specifically English news whatsoever
• There is zero political analysis of English issues AS English issues. There is no BBC blog about English politics. There are regional blogs discussing English politics but then, the English have never been consulted on the balkanisation of England into regions
• No holding to account UK politicians passing off English issues as UK issues
• There is no www.bbc.co.uk/england page but there are www.bbc.co.uk/wales , www.bbc.co.uk/scotland and www.bbc.co.uk/northernireland pages
• There is a www.bbc.co.uk/news/england page but no English business and no English politics – despite the majority of UK politics and business being English. The Welsh, Scottish and Northern Irish pages all have their own business and politics pages
• Issues affecting devolution are routinely excluded from the BBC news England page – take this story about the West Lothian Question: Answer sought to the West Lothian question. This appears in the BBC Scotland pages – yes Scots are clearly affected by the WLQ and it shows how little Scottish UK MPs have to do with their actual constituencies – but it is England the WLQ really affects with unaccountable Scottish, Welsh and Northern Irish MPs having their say on English issues. This story did finally make it onto the BBC News England page but only after complaints. This is not an isolated event.
• There are virtually no English accents on the BBC networks apart from standard English – no Black Country, Brummie,  Scouse, West Country or other accents appear anywhere on the main networks. Contrast this with Scottish accents on the BBC. BBC Radio 4 for instance is virtually wall to wall Scottish accents on some days. Why will the BBC not reflect the wonderful range of English accents?

Those Scottish viewers suggesting that the BBC hasn’t caught up with devolution have it right. However we would argue that it’s England that is getting the rawest deal from the British Brainwashing Corps.