THERE will be reasons. There are always reasons. There will be good, solid, sensible reasons for the BBC to treat the Greens as a minor party on a par with Ukip.

It will have something to do with turnout at the last Scottish Parliamentary election or perhaps it has something to do with the number of candidates standing.

Good reason, solid reasons perhaps. But ultimately wrong headed and almost antiquated reasons.

Firstly, the numbers simply don’t add up; the Greens have long outperformed Ukip in Scotland.

The party received 87,060 at the last Scottish Parliamentary elections, compared to Ukip’s 18,138.

In many ways, the BBC innovates and leads the world.

In technological advances, programme making, writing, documentaries, on radio, drama, comedy it is superb.

At its best, it is quite simply the best in the world. Nothing or no one comes close.

And yet Auntie can react so incredibly slowly to new circumstances. As it is with politics. The decision to place the Greens as a minor party, to give them parity with Ukip in Scotland is incredible.

It is the result of a thinking that has only really recently accepted the SNP as the third largest party in the House of Commons.

For the BBC, politics is about the Conservatives, Labour and the Lib Dems. Anyone else is an irrelevance.

We don’t mean to give the Lib Dems a kicking here.

In fairness, this issue is not their fault but for the last two years they have been out-polled by the Scottish Greens.

They were, in May, just about wiped off the electoral map of the UK, they lost deposits in seats all over Scotland.

If there is a party in Scotland who should be given parity of coverage with Ukip by the BBC, it really should be the Lib Dems.

Politics in Scotland is changing.

No commentator or academic can really predict what’s going to happen in 2016 and what the aftermath of the election in May will be.

But the old way of doing things is coming to an end.

And it’s time the BBC realised that and acted accordingly.





Calls for Greens to get more airtime ahead of elections as broadcasters likely to consider them a 'minor' party

