BBC

The Scotsman:

On the day that the BBC published its annual review, a report by the Audience Council Scotland (ACS) said that there was a "bias" towards stories about England on the UK network....

Citing Radio 4 as an example, it said the BBC's flagship current affairs and cultural station had a "world view rooted in the south of England".

Having lived for five years in Scotland, followed by a year in Canada, and then five years back in England, I have to say that television in England is far less parochial and nationalistic. In England, especially on the BBC, you are far more likely to be presented with a programme or series that is specifically about Scotland than you are to happen across a programme specifically about England. The BBC doesn't do England. I wouldn't be surprised if it was possible to watch an entire day of TV in England without hearing the word 'England' mentioned, apart from on the weather forecast or if the English football/cricket/rugby team happened to be playing.

In England we get 'A History of Scotland' shown on prime time, and repeated ad nauseum, but no 'A History of England'. There is a 'Reporting Scotland' but no 'Reporting England'; there's a 'BBC Scotland Investigates' but no 'BBC England Investigates'; there's a 'Newsnight Scotland' but no 'Newsnight England'; there's a 'Politics Show Scotland' but no 'Politics Show England', and; on radio there's a 'Good Morning Scotland' but no 'Good Morning England'.

The problem for Scots is not that there is a bias towards England, but rather that there is a bias against England and BBC programmes ostensibly about Britain (but in reality about England) are presented as British when they should be presented as English and confined to English audiences.

It's time for broadcasting federalism, that way we might actually hear some English accents on TV.

The Scotsman continues:

The report suggested that coverage about Scottish issues such as alcohol abuse and sectarianism was not detailed enough on a UK-wide level.

Scottish issues such as alcohol abuse and sectarianism? Forgive me for saying so but that reads very much like a stereotypical English view of Scotland from the ACS.

The BBC updated their England 'country profile' webpage yesterday, I have highlighted in bold the addition they made:

Identity

According to the most recent census data, about 95% of the population of Scotland and Wales identify as White British, rising to 99% in Northern Ireland. The comparable figure for England is just under 85%. Therefore most of the British debate about ethnic diversity, immigration and national identity in fact applies to England.

This sensitive political question is further complicated by two factors.

First, British and English institutions and national identifiers such as flag, language, anthem and popular culture largely overlap. As a result, markers of specific English identity, such as the flag of St George, tend to be unofficial, while similar signs of Scottish and Welsh nationhood are sanctioned by the separate institutions of those countries.

Second, Scottish and Welsh nationalist movements have long been part of the political mainstream, and are seen as champions of legitimate historical national identities. English nationalism, on the other hand, is more often portrayed as a reaction to non-white immigration and the exclusive province of the neo-fascist right, despite the existence of a small constitutional nationalist movement that focuses on the English parliament issue.

This makes public discussion of English identity politics difficult, as politicians on the left and right have discovered, as accusations of racism and appeasement of minorities are exchanged.

The one area where English identity is able to develop without political controversy is the realm of culture, and sporting teams are often the most comfortable focus for national loyalty.

A cache of the old version is available here.

Newsnight presenter Matt Frei opened last night's show on the government's proposed reforms to the NHS in England with these words:

"Nigel Lawson, the Tory peer, once said that the National Health Service was the closest thing the British had to a religion"

The quote that Matt Frei is referring to is this one from Lawson's book The View from No. 11 (1993).

The National Health Service is the closest thing the English have to a religion, with those who practise in it regarding themselves as a priesthood. This made it quite extraordinarily difficult to reform.

Why change the subject of the observation from 'English' to 'British', especially when the Government's health reforms affect only the English; just what the is the BBC's problem with England? Mark Simpson has the answer.

Whatever they brought the English in the past, the institutions of "Britishness" are now little more than a conspiracy against England and the English. A way to keep them disenfranchised and identity-less - except during international football matches (and then only because the Scots refused, years ago, to join the UK team).

The BBC, Westminster, the Royal Family and London all block the emergence of an English national - and political - consciousness. Why? Because it would undermine their power, their very existence, and indeed, their point. The institutions of "Britishness" may or may not favour "Scottishness" (and "Welshness") but are quite definitely all set against Englishness. London is the former capital of a global empire turned capital of globalisation still pretending to speak on behalf of a "Britain" that doesn't exist any more - but located in the heart of an England that actually does.

So an English MP breaks the conspiracy of silence and complains that the Barnett Formula and West Lothian Question are unfair to England.

And how does the BBC report this? Well it's obvious, innit? The BBC puts the story on the front page of the BBC Wales website but makes absolutely no mention of it on its England page.

The new look BBC website predictably regionalises England into arbitrary and artificial regions.

But what's interesting is the fact that the BBC has ditched the Government and EU's arbitrary regions in favour of it's own arbitrary regions. More sensibly London is now a part of the South East and Oxfordshire has been ejected. Oxfordshire never really had any real relationship with counties like Sussex, Essex and Kent; Oxfordshire sits far more comfortably with the likes of Warwickshire and Gloucestershire, at least to those of us with any sense of place and appreciation of English landscape and culture. But surprisingly the BBC have chosen to lump Oxfordshire in with Dorset and Hampshire.

What would make real sense would be for the BBC to forget about regions altogether and just use English counties. If Northern Ireland (population 1,775,000) can have its own BBC, then why can't Kent (population 1,406,600) or Yorkshire (3,978,484) or Sussex (population 1,392,737)? I don't have any objection to counties being lumped together where there's a good marriage (East & West Sussex, Hereford and Worcester, Norfolk and Suffolk, Devon and Cornwall), but I fail to see the point or purpose of these fake regions, whether governmental or BBC.

She's Claire. She's from Lewes. She makes stunning jewellery. And last night she was on the BBC's High Street Dreams.

She's also a friend of mine. It's a shame that the programme was on opposite England's game against Mexico, so in case you missed it there's a link below to watch again.

Website: Claire English
Watch Again: High Street Dreams on BBC iPlayer

I just watched The People's Politician on the BBC:

After a shocking year for relations between people and politicians, two retiring MPs, Ann Widdecombe and Richard Caborn, are challenged to heal the rift between them and us. Could giving us more of a say over our MPs - using the internet, for example - help bring back any of the 17 million who didn't vote at the last election?

Richard Caborn, the affable MP for Sheffield, confronted a room full of politically apathetic young men in an attempt to light a political fire in their bellies, the old union firebrand was sure he could awaken their inner Scargill. In fact, he'd stake his reputation on it.

He didn't. It was a disaster because he could not even convince one listless youth that he or the British political process had anything to offer them. They met him with blank stares. It was painful to watch. They still wouldn't be voting because it was pointless, they informed him. Caborn was crest-fallen, slightly humiliated; he couldn't understand why youngsters these days thought that politicians were a bunch of unprincipled, thieving, lying bastards - he took that personally. Why wouldn't they engage?

I'm a young person passionate about politics, or at least I was a young person when I began campaigning for an English parliament. Almost every MP I contacted fobbed me off and told me that my concerns were trivial or not salient. Some even said that the problem that I saw with England's democracy wasn't actually a problem, it was simply an anomaly. I was stonewalled or ignored, and often they did the exact opposite of what I was wanting them to do, usually by concentrating solely on Britishness, forgetting England completely.

Richard Caborn was one of those MPs who ignored me. I wrote to him several times in 2004 about the Government's abolition of the English Tourism Council to create VisitBritain. He never answered and had one of his wonks at the DCMS fob me off with non-answers. I was passionate about something, I tried to engage, he fobbed me off.

Ultimately I feel vindicated because in 2009 Caborn's policy was reversed and Visit England - a stand alone English Tourism Council - was recreated, presumably because 2009 was the year that regional assemblies died (not that they'd ever admit that regionalism had anything to do with their original decision). All of which just goes to show that Richard Caborn is a daft beardy twat (seen in the programme drinking bitter out of a half-pint glass) who shouldn't complain too much that people can't be bothered to engage with him. Good riddance, Richard.

This is a pretty good distillation of the English Question by the BBC.

A campaign for an English parliament has grown and is backed by some opposition Conservative MPs, but has not yet entered the political mainstream. The Labour government maintains that an English parliament would overshadow the rest of the United Kingdom. Cornwall, an English county with a separate Celtic identity, has seen a campaign for its own assembly, backed by all five of the county's Liberal Democrat MPs.

According to the most recent census data, about 95% of the population of Scotland and Wales identify as White British, rising to 99% in Northern Ireland. The comparable figure for England is just under 85%. Therefore most of the British debate about ethnic diversity, immigration and national identity in fact applies to England.

This sensitive political question is further complicated by two factors.

First, British and English institutions and national identifiers such as flag, language, anthem and popular culture largely overlap. As a result, markers of specific English identity, such as the flag of St George, tend to be unofficial, while similar signs of Scottish and Welsh nationhood are sanctioned by the separate institutions of those countries.

Second, Scottish and Welsh nationalist movements have long been part of the political mainstream, and are seen as champions of legitimate historical national identities. English nationalism, on the other hand, is more often portrayed as a reaction to non-white immigration and the exclusive province of the neo-fascist right.

This makes public discussion of English identity politics difficult, as politicians on the left and right have discovered, as accusations of racism and appeasement of minorities are exchanged.

The one area where English identity is able to develop without political controversy is the realm of culture, and sporting teams are often the most comfortable focus for national loyalty.

The BBC is getting better at differentiating between English and British, as this landmark article shows, but it still unfortunately apes the UK Government in its discrimination against England. The BBC as much as our political classes are to blame for the 'political controversy' surrounding English identity. There is no BBC England, no English channel (see iPlayer), and the BBC would never commission a season of programmes celebrating English history, culture and nationhood, as it does for Scotland. The best we English can hope for is a costume drama or two, or a non-commital speculative look at Englishness like Made-in-England.

You can enjoy a Scottish, Welsh and British history portal on the BBC, but there's nothing for England.

• http://www.bbc.co.uk/scotland/history/
• http://www.bbc.co.uk/wales/history/
• http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/british/
• http://www.bbc.co.uk/england/history/

And if you're looking forward to the Proms, then this is how the BBC advertises that multi-national celebration of Britishness.

Still, I suppose it's for the best. The BBC would want to be accused of being racist.

Dear BBC,

I am writing to raise a matter of concern regarding the manner in which particular areas of political policy are often reported on the BBC and in the media in general. I am greatly worried that, during coverage of the next general election, these policy areas will be described and presented by the BBC in an incomplete and inaccurate way, which – it must regrettably be observed – is a not infrequent occurrence on a day-to-day basis. If this were to happen, the Corporation would be failing egregiously in its duty as the UK’s leading public-service broadcaster with an obligation to inform the public about matters of interest to it.

The areas of legislation and policy to which I am referring are those that have been devolved in varying degrees to separately elected parliamentary bodies and administrations in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. One consequence of devolution is that when the same matters are discussed, and laws relating to them are enacted, in the UK Parliament, they very often relate to England only – or to England plus one or more of the other UK nations, depending on the subject matter of the legislation; but always to England.

In the context of the general election, this means that many of the major areas of party policy that will be discussed and presented to the electorate will concern England only. These include: education; health; local government and communities; policing, crime and justice (which includes Wales, too); regional and local transport policy; planning; housing; culture and sport; the environment and farming; etc. The main UK-wide political parties generally try to obfuscate the fact that, as far as the Westminster Parliament is concerned, its competence in these areas is limited to England. They do so, in the main, either by misleadingly referring to the country to which their policies on these topics are addressed as ‘Britain’ (implying the whole of Britain, which is simply not true), or by vaguely invoking ‘this country’ – thereby letting people believe they mean Britain when in fact they’re referring to England, but avoiding having to say so.

Why the political parties don’t want to admit openly that, of necessity, their proposed legislative programmes in these matters relate mainly to England alone is a matter of debate. One obvious reason is that, by making it explicit that so many of the key election issues affect only England, this would call into question the whole legitimacy of an election process that allows people in the other countries of the UK to vote on them. It would potentially be hugely embarrassing and confusing for the parties to have to admit that they were canvassing the support of people in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland on issues that affect only the people of England.

But that is no reason to allow them to get away with it. The parties are basically practising a deceit on the British public – well, actually, two deceits: 1) pretending to English people that their policies on England-only matters also affect the other nations of the UK, so that they won’t object to people in those countries voting on them; 2) allowing politically uninformed people in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland to think that the representatives they will be sending to Westminster can influence decisions on these matters that will affect them, whereas they can’t: those matters are now dealt with by the separately elected devolved administrations.

It is surely the duty of the BBC to cut through all this duplicity to report the parties’ policy proposals accurately and impartially. If parties’ manifesto pledges relate to England only, the BBC should report them as such even if the parties themselves try to avoid referring to England. In order to do this really well, perhaps the BBC should consider making clear divides, within programmes and news bulletins discussing the election campaign, between UK-wide issues and England- (or England and Wales-) specific ones. This should not be too complicated: it would be simply a case of, say, devoting the first 15 minutes of a half-hour programme clearly and explicitly to UK-wide matters (and perhaps throwing in those that relate to England plus Wales); and then dedicating the last 15 minutes to England-specific subjects. Presenters should clearly flag up the ‘geographical extent’ (as the government puts it) of the policies that are going to be discussed at the beginning and end of each section, and at the beginning and end of each policy area that has been debated. When coming to the England-only topics, the script could draw viewers’ / listeners’ attention to the fact that the rest of the programme relates directly to England alone; and it would even perhaps be appropriate to apologise to people elsewhere in the UK: ‘we apologise to viewers not in England that the discussions throughout the rest of the programme relate to policy proposals for England only’.

It should not be too difficult for the BBC to differentiate between UK-wide and England-only policy areas: the responsibilities of the devolved administrations and, correspondingly, the England-only competencies of UK-government departments are well documented. Some of these departments deal with England-only matters in some areas but UK-wide ones in others, e.g. the Department of Culture, Media and Sport: culture and sport, England; media UK. But then the BBC would just have to make sure that any debates dealing with policy on the arts or sport are clearly demarcated as England-specific, and those concerning media policy are dealt with under the UK rubric. If in doubt, I feel sure that someone from the Campaign for an English Parliament, or an academic expert on devolution, or even I myself would be prepared to act as a consultant to help the BBC separate out the English issues from the UK ones.

I cannot stress too highly how critically important it is to get this right. In the absence of a separate English parliament to deal with legislation affecting England only, a UK general election is the only opportunity the English public are given to express their views – however imperfectly under the present electoral system – on the parties’ policies for them. As a public-service broadcaster, it is the BBC’s duty to help the public to understand and scrutinise how parties’ proposals may affect them, and how they will not. And an essential component of this public-service function must surely be to inform the English people that some proposals affect them only, and to inform UK citizens living outside England that those same proposals do not in fact concern them. In this way, voters in England can use their votes as an expression of their wishes and priorities for their own country – England – alongside their preferences in matters affecting the whole of the UK. And voters in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland can be helped not to waste their vote on policies that are irrelevant to them.

Yours respectfully,

David Rickard

The BBC has recently come under criticism for failing to differentiate between Britain and England in its news reports, it's a charge that the CEP have levelled at the BBC for years, along with Scottish nationalists and Welsh nationalists. Their failure to stipulate when a news item refers to England, or the UK as a whole, is not only politically biased, it is also extremely misleading.

Imagine my shock to read this Education report on the BBC website.

England's workers are to be given a new right to request time off for training relevant to their job...

England's Department for Innovation, Universities and Skills said the new right would work in the same way as the existing right to request flexible working....

It comes as the Westminster government attempts to boost the nation's skills as part of its efforts to keep England competitive in a globalised economy....

What a complete reversal. This is exactly what we have been calling for all these years since devolution. When the BBC starts referring to a UK Government department as England's Department, which is what it is, it is going to be difficult for Gordon Brown and his Britishness chums to keep up the pretense of a unitary UK government.

Although I am full of praise for the BBC finally seeing the light I must point out that their recent news item Scotland budget method 'perverse' - which highlighted the financial discrimination against England - was only reported on the BBC Scotland website (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/7458164.stm) Is this story not of more concern to the English, or Welsh (who probably get screwed over by the Scots more than England does)?