SCOTLAND is appallingly poorly served by our state broadcaster, yet any attempt to discuss the devolution of broadcasting is treated by the Unionist parties and the BBC hierarchy as though you’ve just suggested that Nick Robinson be lightly coated in garam flour and deep fried in ghee live on the News at Six. The idea that Scotland should be permitted to have its own state broadcast media is regarded in certain circles as even less plausible than Iain Duncan Smith stopping the demonisation of people dependent on social security.

The devolution of broadcasting is not only not on the table, despite what David Cameron said in the final days of the referendum campaign when he promised that everything was up for discussion, it’s not even in the studio building. And unlike Elvis, it was never there in the first place in order to leave it. Davie Cameron’s blue suede shoes kicked it out of touch before it could ever be discussed.

Suggesting that Scotland just might possibly be better provided for with a national public broadcast channel of its own, subject to the control and oversight of Scottish institutions and accountable to the Scottish public who pay for it, receives a hysterical response from the Unionists. It’s nationalist bullying to suggest that a public service might actually be accountable to the public that it services. Poor BBC, being bullied by people with placards protesting peacefully. Although if the BBC really is a helpless victim of bullying by a granny from Methil with a home-made poster and an angry frown, then you do have to wonder just how effective the institution is going to be at standing up for the public against the powerful and well-connected. The claim that the BBC is being bullied by ordinary people protesting peacefully is in itself an admission that the BBC is unfit for purpose.

So opponents of the perfectly sensible proposal for a Scottish national broadcaster have to resort to a variation of the too-wee-too-poor-and-too-stupid argument, telling us the quality of our television would suffer – the implication being Scotland couldn’t possibly produce any television worth watching. The main problem with this argument is of course that the people making it are responsible for producing Scottish television programmes that are spectacularly dire right now. Scotland 2015 is so rubbish that you could be forgiven for thinking that it was bad on purpose as part of a dastardly plot to make Scottish people lose interest in politics. In no universe is it possible to conceptualise a news and current affairs programme which could possibly be worse.

But undeterred by the evidence they press on – just think of all the quality television we’ll lose out on, say the same people who commissioned Mountain Goats, a sitcom that makes Terry And June seem cutting edge and original, only lacking Terry And June’s sense of comedy timing, set-ups, pace and indeed jokes.

If Scotland had its own broadcaster we’d no longer get all those programmes with Great British in the title and weather maps that make Scotland look smaller than Kent, and that would be a bad thing. And we won’t get Dr Who either. Dr Who is capable of travelling through time: in the blink of an eye he can traverse the uncountable billions of miles across the void of deep space, but he won’t be able to cross the Tweed if Scotland gets its own broadcast telly and not even a sonic screwdriver will bridge the gap. We’ll be left defenceless against the Daleks, who are almost as evil in their intent as the SNP.

The point of the Unionist incredulity is to make out that it’s utterly unreasonable for Scotland to ask for something that’s entirely normal in every other self-governing territory, region or country in this continent. Catalonia, the Basque Country, Friesland, Galicia, the Faroe Islands, Bavaria and each of the other German Länder, the autonomous South Tyrol in Italy, and tiny Gagauzia, all have their own public broadcast channels. Catalonia even has its own 24-hour news channel. So if you want to know why pro-independence events in Catalonia attract hundreds of thousands, it’s not solely because they have much nicer weather there, it’s also in no small measure due to the fact that they have a broadcast media which reports on these events before they take place, and let people know that they’re planned.

You may not have heard of Gagauzia. Few people have, which is a pity as the Gagauz are a remarkable people with a fascinating culture. Remember the claim that was made by the Unionist establishment just after the independence referendum that Scotland would be the most devolviest devolved country in the history of devolving? Well, the Gagauz would beg to differ. The Gagauz are 140,000 Orthodox Christian Turkish speakers who live in a corner of Moldova. Moldova is the poorest country in Europe, and the autonomous territory of the Gagauz people is smaller than Ayrshire with fewer people than Aberdeen – and yet it has its own public broadcaster. Gagauzia has its own public broadcaster because it’s normal for autonomous or self-governing countries or territories to have their own public broadcasters. It’s the position of Scotland which is the anomaly. So, 140,000 people in the poorest corner of the poorest country in Europe have more rights of self-government than Scotland does.

So while Catalonia has its own news channel, and even Gagauzia keeps its citizens better informed, Scotland gets 30 minutes of Reporting Scotland after the “proper news” – otherwise known as the news where we aren’t. Our 30 minutes of the news “where we are” typically consists of five minutes of bashing the Scottish Government about NHS waiting lists, five minutes of murder, five minutes of oohing at a cute kitten, and fifteen minutes of the fitba.

The reason for the reluctance to devolve broadcasting is obvious. It’s got nothing to do with the broadcast needs of Scotland. It’s got nothing to do with ensuring that Scotland’s culture and politics are properly aired, disseminated and discussed by the people of Scotland. It’s got everything to do with ensuring that the Westminster Parliament and the Unionist parties maintain their death-like grip on the means of communication. Because that’s what won them the last independence referendum, and without it, they know they won’t win the second. The refusal to consider devolution of broadcasting is all about Westminster’s interests, not Scotland’s.

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