Former BBC Radio Scotland presenter, Lesley Riddoch, has urged her erstwhile colleagues to get “actively involved” in the debate on whether Scotland should become independent, even if means abandoning some of its fabled impartiality.
In the wake of the SNP's landslide victory in the Scottish Parliament elections and the promise of a referendum sometime over the next five years on whether Scotland should split from the United Kingdom, Riddoch wrote yesterday, in The Scotsman: “BBC Scotland must get actively involved in the independence debate and stop treating constitutional change like [First Minister and SNP leader] Alex Salmond's personal problem.”
She continues, in her Scotsman column: “The Beeb still displays a paralysing post-Iraq fear of getting involved in the political process. The need to be impartial has blinded Scottish broadcasters to the need to become engaged.
“Scots will soon face the most important constitutional decision the country has ever taken. Back in the days of the Treaty of Union ordinary Scots had no say – now we do.
“And we don't pay a [TV] licence fee for public broadcasters to duck the challenge.”
