Complaints over BBC 'Rent a Mob' pro-SNP Debate

[Teddy Bear]

Sounds typical for a supposed 'balanced' debate hosted by the BBC where they have their own agenda.

Row over Scotland debate 'rent-a-mob': BBC accused of bias after viewers complained independence supporters were allowed to challenge Alistair Darling

• Critics said SNP 'rent-a-mob' were allowed to loudly challenge Darling
• It is claimed the audience of around 200 voters favoured SNP leader
• The BBC had last night received 130 complaints about the debate

By John Stevens and Gareth Rose For The Daily Mail

The BBC has been accused of bias after viewers of the Scottish referendum debate complained it was dominated by supporters of independence.

Critics said that an SNP 'rent-a-mob' were allowed to loudly challenge leader of the No campaign Alistair Darling, while First Minister Alex Salmond escaped tough questioning.

During the bad-tempted and often noisy head-to-head debate it is claimed the audience of around 200 voters favoured the SNP leader, asking him supportive questions and loudly applauding his answers.

The BBC had last night received 130 complaints about the debate ranging from accusations that the audience was dominated by Yes supporters to criticism of the moderator BBC political correspondent Glenn Campbell's failure to intervene.

Labour peer Lord Foulkes said that the second and final television clash was a 'dreadful debate'.

He said: 'In fact, it was not a debate, it was a rammy (Scottish for a quarrel or brawl). I thought Glenn Campbell did not exert any control over it at all, particularly when compared to the STV one where the moderator was in total control.

'He let (Mr) Salmond away with interruptions constantly and the balance of questions I thought, was rather strange.

'There were far too many people picked who were clearly Nats (Scottish Nationalists) attacking Alistair, and some attacking him personally.

'To be honest, (Mr) Salmond was the better debater but it was very badly handled and there are questions for the BBC about how it was done.'

Former Tory MSP Ted Brocklebank said: 'I felt the SNP support, which had been whipped up to cheer every ludicrous statement, appeared like a rent-a-mob to me.

'Glenn said at the start that if it got out of hand he would step in. Both spoke over each other. I turned off before the end.'

On Twitter, viewers accused Mr Campbell of not doing enough to moderate the debate.

Nick Ward wrote: 'I'm finding this audience really biased and the chairing of the debate really weak. Stop Salmond interrupting.'

David Buik posted: 'Reflecting on last night's bunfight - certainly not a debate - Salmond, egged on by the biased audience just shouted louder than Darling!'

Another added: 'Biased presenter, awful Salmond butting in. This debate is a sham.'

Yesterday Mr Darling refused to be drawn when asked whether the debate had been fair. He said: 'Three weeks ago (after the first head-to-head television debate) the opposite was put to me. I don't think it is a question that is something I am going to enter into.'

Mr Salmond said the No campaign use 'pretty wild accusations' and are 'bad losers'.

The BBC last night denied the audience at the debate, which was held at the Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum in Glasgow, was biased.

A spokesman said: 'The audience was balanced between Yes and No voters, with a smaller proportion made up of undecided voters. The format - including how the audience would be selected - was clearly set out in advance and was agreed by both campaigns.

'The audience was selected by an official polling company, in this case ComRes. As well as ComRes making detailed checks, the BBC also did so too.

'The moderator, Glenn Campbell, made it clear in his introduction to those in Kelvingrove that it was a balanced audience and that all sides had to participate to make it feel as such to the television audience at home.

'Glenn was an excellent moderator, in often testing circumstances. He asked key questions and elicited good answers in a very robust debate.'

Campaigners for Scottish independence have previously been accused of trying to bully the BBC into delivering more favourable coverage.

Hundreds of protesters carrying flags and banners gathered outside the BBC headquarters in Glasgow in June to complain that an 'unhealthy bias' existed in favour of the pro-Union Better Together campaign.

Following the protest, Labour MP Jim Murphy said: 'The nationalists' attempts to bully broadcasters and boycott businesses is the last thing the independence debate needs.'

[charmbrights]

This is odd. The BBC position has been that it doesn't want to be broken into Scots and UK portions, which would inevitably happen is independence actually arrives.

Of course, not being a resident of Scotland I don't count in the debate on the break up of my country, so I didn't bother to watch the debate. From all I have read Glenn Campbell will be a worthy successor to the utterly biased and incompetent chairing of the Dimbleby clan.

It really does seem odd that the UK government has allowed the small percentage of the population to wag the much larger dog. But then independence would solve the West Lothian question and prevent a Labour government at a stroke.

[Teddy Bear]

It appears that the prospect of Scotland being more deeply entrenched in the EU than the rest of the country can't be resisted by the BBC.

This professor in The Telegraph outlines the prospect for the BBC even with a No vote in Scotland.

Scots don't need to choose independence to have a more devolved BBC — it will happen anyway
Philip Schlesinger, from the University of Glasgow, looks at how the future of the BBC could still be affected even with a 'no' vote in the Scottish referendum.

If Scots vote for independence, the battle lines for negotiating the future of the BBC have been well advertised.
The SNP would seek to set up a Scottish Broadcasting Service (SBS) based on the staff and assets of BBC Scotland. The SBS would aim to establish a joint venture with the BBC, ensure the corporation’s output could be accessed north of the border, and substantially raise the amount of Scottish content produced.

The debate, if such it be, has just heated up. Last week, seemingly in concert, Lord Birt, a former BBC director-general, and the Shadow Scottish Secretary, Margaret Curran, pictured right, both said the SNP’s vision is unrealizable. Birt, with past form in rejecting modest devolutionary concessions such as a Scottish Six O’Clock TV News, sees independence as crippling future BBC finances while also making Scots pay much more for the corporation’s services.

Ms Curran, apparently bereft of constructive ideas about how, in the event, the BBC might adapt to devolution-max, similarly played the devastation card. Hers is a more serious failure of imagination. What do unionists propose if Scots vote no to independence? Answers might be a good idea, as some of the SNP’s Plan B is already plain. But broadcasting has been absent from the London parties’ new improved devolution offers.

If it’s a yes, Culture Secretary Fiona Hyslop has said that she wants 4,000 hours of independent production commissioned from 2017, giving Scottish viewers ‘more content about and for Scotland’. If this were intended to be high-quality production, it would surely be a big ask for a small country, even backed by Ms Hyslop’s mooted development fund to steer equity into film and TV production.

But what if significantly upping Scottish indies’ production hours became a bargaining chip under devo-max? There is much potential for friction with the BBC’s out-of-London production target, now set at 17 percent from all the nations in 2017. And the quota system presently regulated by Ofcom for the public service commercial broadcasters – Channels 3, 4 and 5 - would also come under pressure.

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Behind the present rules of the game for production is the system of broadcasting and communications regulation. Last year, Finance Secretary John Swinney, pictured right, proposed new economic and competition regulation that encompassed aspects of communications. In line with this, the Scottish Government’s White Paper has pointed to co-regulation with Ofcom, another version of the joint venture idea.

If it’s a no on 18 September, would these ideas simply disappear? Not likely. The BBC is gearing up for the next Charter Review in 2016, a good time for lobbying. The SNP’s nascent Plan B would doubtless raise questions about the corporation’s formal accountability to the Scottish Parliament as well as the adequacy of Scottish representation on the BBC Trust and Ofcom’s board, much in tune with the call for more devolved broadcasting governance made earlier this year by the Silk Commission in Wales.

[charmbrights]

What I fail to understand is why nobody has mentioned that almost every politician, in their heart of hearts, wants a "yes" vote on Thursday.

SNP - it goes without saying.
Tories - it reduces the number of Labour MPs in London significantly.
Labour - it eliminates the SNP's raison d'être at a stroke, and gives Labour a whole new country to rule (cf. Wales). Also it moves the UK Labour Party significantly back to the right, and away from "Old Labour"; getting rid of Wales would also help, thus making New Labour electable again.
Lib-Dem - ~ditto~

Two points:

The reason England and Wales were not given a vote was that there would have been a resounding NO vote and the Scots would have complained long and loud about a "fix".

It won't matter if there is a NO vote as the Scots will simply be given another referendum, and another, and another, ad infinitum until they get the "right" answer, just as Scotland and Wales were over their original devolution votes, both of which were rejected first time round. Only Nicola Sturgeon has had the honesty/stupidity to mention this option in public.

Edited to add I know Salmond has said "once in a generation" but that just means "while I am still leader of the SNP" and he will undoubtedly be sacked by his party if he doesn't get a YES this time.