By Peter Geoghegan
 
A century ago, the constitutional future of Scotland seemed irrevocably bound up with that of Ireland. In 1912, Liberal Prime Minister Herbert Henry Asquith – a proponent of ‘Home Rule all round’ – introduced the Government of Ireland Bill, soon followed by a similar devolution settlement for Scotland.
 
The rest, of course, is history. The Great War put paid to both Scotland and Ireland’s hopes of devolved government. By the time the conflict was over, Ireland was on the cusp of independence, and Scottish Home Rule had slipped (or, depending on your reading, was pushed) off the political agenda.

  By George Kerevan
 
GORDON Brown is that rare animal in politics: a card-carrying intellectual who likes ideas. I say this as a compliment. Unlike the Tories, Labour has always attracted the big brains. The list is almost endless: think Harold Wilson, Denis Healey, John Mackintosh, Richard Crossman or Anthony Crosland.

Curiously, most of this bunch hid their intellectual brilliance behind a façade of thuggish pragmatism. This is explained partly because Stalinist Labour distrusts middle- class intellectuals as being unreliable elements in the class war.

By Derek Bateman

How do you report a larger deficit in Scotland’s budget? Easy – you report that the income is down because oil is volatile and get someone from each side of the debate to state their case. In essence, that is it. It is the simple, formulaic process used to inform the public. But does it…inform?

Only if you think reporting a car crash amounts to saying two vehicles hit each other on the road.  If you are interested in why that happened and how it could be avoided in future, you are unlikely to learn from most broadcast news where the event itself is classed as ‘news’.

  By G.A.Ponsonby

This week the Scottish Parliament will look into a study carried out by an academic that suggested the news output of BBC Scotland was biased against independence.

Professor John Robertson’s research suggested evening news output favoured the No campaign by a ratio of three to two, allowed more comment from pro-Union commentators and led with anti-independence stories more than pro-independence stories.