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Chapter 10 - Economical with the Truth As in all nationwide elections, the issue of the economy is never far away and so it was with the independence referendum. The No campaign hammered away at this issue relentlessly. There were claims the referendum was harm-ing investment, warnings that companies would desert Scotland in the event of a Yes vote and „fears‟ expressed that interest rates would rocket. So-called „impartial‟ and „respected‟ academics issued reports which purported to con-tain analysis of the consequences of a Yes vote. So called „business-leaders‟ is-sued statements warning jobs would be lost and prices would increase. The economic argument levelled against independence was a relentless conveyor belt of doom. In the previous chapter I chronicled a complaint levelled against the BBC which was eventually partially upheld. Despite the guilty ruling from the BBC Trust, the broadcaster carried on as though the year-long complaint had never been pursued. There was no reflection, no correction … no apology. The rul-ing from the BBC Trust served as an alert to people who believed that the BBC could be trusted to report the independence referendum in a truly impartial manner. It also emphasised a reluctance within the BBC to acknowledge mis-takes. The BBC didn‟t appear to have a reverse gear. There was no public acknowledgement of fallibility. The broadcaster - god like - could do no wrong. A similar logic was applied to referendum-related news stories. Claims and attacks from Unionist politicians were religiously turned into headlines. But when these claims were subsequently demonstrated to have been baseless, they were never revisited. For example in chapter five I highlighted the report from a London based analyst who warned that a Yes vote would harm Scottish inward investment. In November 2011 Citigroup analyst Peter Atherton also claimed the independence referendum was causing "huge uncertainty". Ather-ton‟s claims received considerable coverage from BBC Scotland and were headline news across the corporation‟s spectrum. That same month UK Chancellor George Osborne said the independence ref-erendum was damaging the economy. According to Osborne, major compa-nies had questioned whether they should go ahead with investment plans. Osborne‟s attack, like the Citigroup analyst‟s report eleven days earlier, was similarly slotted into BBC Scotland news bulletins. Here‟s a reminder of what George Osborne said when speaking to the BBC on 13 November 2011:

“I think the instability and the uncertainty that hangs over the Scottish economy (is) because of Alex Salmond raising the prospects of inde-pendence…

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Continued: I think that uncertainty is damaging investment in Scotland – and there are major businesses around the world who have asked me as chancellor in the last year „tell us what is going on in Scotland – we‟re worried about making an investment in that country‟.”

Atherton and Osborne weren‟t alone in claiming the independence referen-dum was damaging Scotland‟s economy. A host of pro-Union politicians lined up to tell Scots how much damage the independence referendum was doing to inward investment and businesses. On 9th January 2012, Prime Minister David Cameron said:

“If Alex Salmond wants a referendum on independence, why do we wait until 2014? This is very damaging for Scotland because all the time businesses are asking „Is Scotland going to stay part of the UK? Are they going to stay together? Should I invest‟?”

On 25th January 2012, Secretary of State Michael Moore repeated the claims, saying:

“With too long a period, we will just increase the uncertainty about Scotland‟s future, which will affect jobs, it will affect investment plans.”

Speaking on 16th January, Scottish Tory leader Ruth Davidson said:

“… continuing constitutional uncertainty is damaging business in Scot-land.”

One month later, her Scottish Labour counterpart Johann Lamont talked of:

“…the growing uncertainty the delay over the referendum is creating.” The claims were all nonsense. In June 2012 One of the world‟s largest ac-counting firms concluded that the possibility of a Yes result in the referendum was having very little, if any, effect on inward investment. In its report, Ernst & Young concluded that:

“… any concerns over the prospect of independence and potential knock-on impacts on areas such as corporate taxation appeared to be having little or no effect on FDI [Foreign Direct Investment] decisions”.

One year later in June 2013 another study by the same accounting firm re-vealed that foreign investment had increased by almost fifty per cent the pre-vious year, bringing it to its highest level for fifteen years.

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The survey found that in relation to the possibility of independence there was:

“…no sign of investors being deterred from coming to Scotland; if any-thing, the reverse appears to be true.”

The Scottish Council Development and Industry had already said in relation to independence:

“It was difficult to discern tangible evidence that the debate itself was causing investment to be halted or deferred.”

In June 2014 Ernst and Young reported another record year for inward in-vestment and said that Scotland‟s high international profile in 2014 had given the country a “competitive edge” over the rest of the UK. But what did it prove? Well over the two years from June 2012 to June 2014, Ernst and Young had effectively demonstrated just how untrustworthy claims from Un-ionist politicians could be. By 2014 it was apparent that, in the area if inward investment at least, senior politicians from all three main Unionist parties had effectively been making stuff up. The BBC had headlined most of the claims, but when evidence emerged that blew them out of the water, the doom-mongers weren‟t pursued. Headlines are critical in getting a message over, they steer the reader before a single article word is read. Many people will read a headline, skim read the opening paragraphs, and move on having absorbed the message. Others never get as far as reading the article - the headline is all they see. The message from the No campaign, that the referendum was damaging investment and inde-pendence would damage the economy, took hold and the BBC played its part. On Wednesday December 18th 2013, BBC Scotland published an article follow-ing a statement from ratings agency Fitch. The agency had compiled a report that made reference to a proposed currency union between an independent Scotland and the rest of the UK. The headline on the original BBC Scotland article read: „Scottish independ-ence: „Neutral‟ effect on credit, says Fitch‟. The initial paragraph read:

The ratings agency Fitch has said Scottish independence would be "neutral" for the sovereign credit profile of the residual UK (rUK). It said both the rUK (England, Wales and Northern Ireland) and Scot-land would be left with identical public debt ratios. However, its report warned that plans for an independent Scotland to continue use of the pound would be unstable.

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The headline was marginally helpful to the Yes campaign. The word „neutral‟ challenged the agenda being pursued by their anti-independence opponents who were claiming financial and economic chaos would follow independence. Yet here was a BBC news report which appeared to suggest the opposite. It wasn‟t an earth shattering story but was a welcome change to the relentless negativity that was regularly headlined. But then something odd happened. Thirty five minutes after the article ap-peared, its headline was amended. Independence was no longer neutral. The headline now read: „Scottish independence: Use of pound „unsta-ble‟, says Fitch‟

The opening paragraph had also been amended. The introduction now read:

The ratings agency Fitch has warned that plans for an independent Scotland to continue use of the pound would be unstable. Drawing on Eurozone experience, it said a shared currency without shared fiscal and banking union could risk "high volatility and market turbulence". Its report also said the credit profile of the residual UK (England, Wales and Northern Ireland) would be neutral.

The thrust of the piece had been reversed. Instead of gently favouring the Yes campaign it now strongly favoured the No campaign. Independence, instead of being „neutral‟ was now „unstable‟. The headline and article had been amended at 19:55. But who was responsible for the change? Beside the main article now sat an analysis by BBC Scotland‟s Business and Economy editor Douglas Fraser. According to the BBC‟s own timestamp Mr Fraser‟s analysis appeared 19:50, five minutes before the headline change on the main article. Interestingly, Mr Fraser‟s piece was headlined – „Pound „unstable‟ under independence‟.

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Were the two linked? Had Fraser‟s analysis led to the main story headline be-ing altered? The BBC man‟s own analysis contained a rather curious state-ment.

“But if [sharing the pound] is agreed, Fitch assesses a risk of „high vola-tility and market turbulence‟ unless there's a fiscal and banking union - that is, unless Holyrood's and Westminster's deficits and debt move in step, which would appear to be counter to the point of independence.”

Why was it counter to independence for Holyrood and Westminster deficits and debt to move in step? The Scottish government was promoting the idea of a currency union along with agreements that would ensure just such a fiscal alignment. If an independent Scotland decided to keep using the pound, then a fiscal agreement wasn‟t counter to independence, it was advantageous. But, there was something else. Contrary to the new headline, Fitch hadn‟t in fact claimed a currency union would be unstable in isolation; the ratings agen-cy had qualified its warning.

“As the intensification of the eurozone crisis showed in 2012, a mone-tary union without fiscal and banking union is unstable and the pro-spect of an exit from a monetary union could lead to high volatility and market turbulence, potentially detrimental to all members.”

Fitch believed the instability would result only if there was no fiscal and bank-ing union. The BBC should merely have warned that the so-called instability was merely a possibility. It would be a further twenty four hours before BBC Scotland altered the headline again with the word „would‟ replaced by the more accurate „could‟ - „Scottish independence: Use of pound could be ‘unstable’, says Fitch‟.

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A similar change was made to the article body, with the word „would‟ being re-placed by the word „could‟. By the time of the correction, which watered down the anti-independence message significantly, the article had long since moved from its original prominent position on the BBC Scotland website. Fewer visi-tors would see the more nuanced version. Someone at BBC Scotland had amended an online article which initially fa-voured Yes and in doing so had given it a thrust that was helpful to the No campaign. The edit had given the story a much stronger anti-independence line than it deserved. By the time it was corrected, the story had all but disap-peared from the online news site. The manipulation of BBC Scotland online content in order to, shall I say, max-imise effect was not a new phenomenon. There were lots of examples. One quite appalling episode involved a visit to the United States by First Minister Alex Salmond. On September 25th 2012 a delegation led by Alex Salmond ar-rived in Chicago on a trade mission to promote sport, trade and culture ahead of the 2014 Ryder Cup at Gleneagles. During the trip, ministers carried out an extensive programme of targeted en-gagement with high-level business, media, tourism and civic leaders, to devel-op relationships, support potential and existing inward investment in Scot-land, and to promote Scotland, as the Home of Golf, and the host of the 2014 Ryder Cup. The First Minister‟s itinerary included a number of business meet-ings which secured over 140 new jobs and tens of millions of pounds in new investment from US based companies who were successfully expanding their operations in Scotland. The First Minister also undertook a number of cultural engagements, includ-ing attending a performance of the traditional music festival Celtic Connec-tions which showcased the best of Scottish talent free to the Chicago public to attract visitors to the 2013 event in Scotland. The First Minister attended the Ryder Cup Opening Ceremony on the course at the Medinah Country Club on Thursday, September 27. He represented Scotland in the handover ceremony at the close on Sunday, September 30 where he received the Silver Putter which denoted Scotland taking over the tournament preparations for Gleneagles 2014. The golfing event was estimat-ed to be worth around £100 million to the Scottish economy. The Scottish government, appreciating the opportunities the event offered, also enlisted Gaelic singer Julie Fowlis, who featured on the film soundtrack of Brave, and violin virtuoso Nicola Benedetti in the team. It was a very well organised trade mission which sought to maximise the eco-nomic benefit of the world‟s biggest golfing event. There was little, if anything, to criticise as positive images of Scotland were beamed across the world. Two months later that changed.

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On November 29th 2012 a story appeared on the BBC Scotland online news site.

The article began:

The cost of sending a delegation led by First Minister Alex Salmond to the Ryder Cup golf tournament in America was almost £470,000, the Scottish government has said.

The trip had to have cost something, so why was it headline news on BBC Scot-land? The answer was to be found in the article. The cost of the trip had been contained in a response to a question from Scottish Labour. A Labour MSP, Mark Griffin, had asked the Scottish government which minis-ters, special advisers, officials and representatives of its agencies had attended the event in an official capacity and what their role was. Griffin also wanted to know how much the Scottish government and its agen-cies spent in relation to the visit and what the purpose of this expenditure was. Finally the Labour MSP asked what the First Minister‟s itinerary had been for the trip. When the details were supplied by the Scottish government, Labour leapt into action. Labour MSP Patricia Ferguson said:

“To find out that Alex Salmond's trip to watch the golf cost all of us al-most half a million pounds is eye-watering.”

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It was our old friend the smear. But it wasn‟t the Scottish Labour party smear that troubled me, it was the BBC headline that accompanied the article. Alex Salmond‟s Ryder Cup trip cost £470,000. It was eerily similar to Patri-cia Ferguson‟s description of the trade delegation as „Alex Salmond's trip‟. An-yone reading the headline would be forgiven for believing this was a lucrative golfing junket organised for the benefit of the First Minister and not the offi-cial delegation it was. Of course the article itself made it clear that the trip in question was the offi-cial delegation to Chicago, but the image and the provocative headline were subliminally suggestive. The reader was being led before reading the story - assuming he or she actually got beyond the headline. The article, which was originally published just before 9 am, remained unaltered until just before midday when the misleading headline was then quietly altered. The headline was „corrected‟ to - Alex Salmond-led Ryder Cup trip ′cost £470,000′.

However, the apparent desire to implicate the First Minister in the cost of the trip, which was in fact £468,580, was not restricted to the headline. The orig-inal image that accompanied the BBC story had been one of a silhouetted golf-er. It was later changed to a picture of Mr Salmond apparently playing golf on the trip.

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BBC Scotland had started with a benign headline - Ryder Cup trip „cost £470,000‟ and an equally benign image. Someone at the corporation had then taken a decision to personalise the headline in line with the Labour at-tack. The initial image was also replaced with one of Alex Salmond playing golf, despite the fact that Mr Salmond did not play any golf when attending the official delegation to Chicago. But far from being out of the ordinary, the Scottish government‟s business del-egation was entirely appropriate and expected. Indeed the Welsh Assembly spent over half a million pounds on similar trips in order to promote the 2010 Ryder Cup at Celtic Manor. Trips to Oakland Hills in 2004, Ireland in 2006 and Kentucky in 2008 cost £62,000, £201,000 and £267,000 respectively. Visit Wales also spent £7.6 million on the 2010 event to maximise returns on then existing/current marketing activities and focusing on campaigns in USA. The total public expenditure for the 2010 Celtic Manor Ryder Cup was a stag-gering £69 million. The Scottish delegation to Chicago promoted not just the Gleneagles 2014 event but dovetailed with the marketing of animation blockbuster Brave in or-der to maximise the benefits to Scottish tourism. Sadly, it also resulted in a cheap smear attack on Alex Salmond, aided by some suggestive imagery and headlining by BBC Scotland. The area of the economy was a proverbial goldmine for the anti-independence campaign. In predicting a future independent Scotland, Unionists could say anything they wanted. They could predict sky-high interest rates, rocketing prices, a pensions collapse, job losses, a loss of trade, escalating deficit, poor credit rating and a mass company exodus.

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The beauty of this line of attack was that it was predicting a post referendum Scotland, and thus could not be proven wrong before the ballot. The „predic-tions‟ usually came from the elite and powerful. Big Business, the UK Treas-ury, think tanks and - incredibly given the scandal that had almost destroyed the UK economy in 2008 - Banks. The warnings almost always found their way into BBC news bulletins. But what if members of the establishment went off message? What if state-ments were issued or interviews given that were damaging to the anti-independence case? Would the BBC provide the same level of coverage? In May 2013, former Labour Chancellor Denis Healey gave an interview to the editor of Holyrood Magazine, Mandy Rhodes. In the interview Healey made an astonishing admission. The Labour politician, who was UK Chancellor from 1974 to 1979, admitted that his party had deliberately downplayed the value of North Sea Oil in order to thwart support for independence. Rhodes had asked Healey about the North Sea Oil issue and how Labour had handled it in the run-up to the 1979 Scottish Home Rule referendum. Healey replied:

“I think we did underplay the value of the oil to the country because of the threat of nationalism but that was mainly down to Thatcher. We didn‟t actually see the rewards from oil in my period in office be-cause we were investing in the infrastructure rather than getting the returns and really, Thatcher wouldn‟t have been able to carry out any of her policies without that additional 5 per cent on GDP from oil.”

It was a sensational admission from a senior Labour politician who had been at the heart of Government during the period when North Sea Oil was entering the political debate. The seventies had seen a rise in support for the SNP and demands for a separate Scottish Parliament were also strong. What Healey was saying was that a Westminster Labour Government had downplayed the value of the oil in order to dissuade Scots from backing the SNP and inde-pendence. The Labour peer also insisted that an independent Scotland could survive “perfectly well”, but said the rest of the UK “would suffer enormously if the income from Scottish oil stopped”. He said of Westminster politicians:

“I think they are concerned about Scotland taking the oil, I think they are worried stiff about it.”

Lord Healey‟s comments were reported on the front pages of some newspa-pers, and were covered by STV news.

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An article based on the full interview was published by Holyrood Magazine. The revelation also caused huge activity on social media with many people ex-pressing outrage at Labour duplicity. However despite their obvious relevance to the independence debate amid claims by the Labour peer that the current UK government were employing the same tactic, BBC Scotland refused to give the story any prominence. The corporation employed a complete news black-out of the story on its early afternoon news broadcasts. That evening Reporting Scotland allotted a mere 15 seconds to the sensational admission, which was in the form of a short comment from reporter Glenn Campbell. When former Labour Chancellor Alistair Darling, who headed the Better Together campaign, appeared on Good Morning Scotland days later, host Gary Robertson failed to press him on the Healey admission. Until the Healey interview, the BBC had demonstrated a noticeable willing-ness to headline oil related stories at the drop of a hat. Academics, UK Treas-ury ministers and a former Chairman of a pro-Union lobbying group all issued statements that turned up as headlines on BBC Scotland. That they were overwhelmingly damaging to the Yes campaign was not surprising. The image below shows examples of the kind of headlines that routinely appeared.

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Healey‟s admission deserved similar coverage. He had re-ignited the debate over North Sea Oil and the trustworthiness of successive Labour and Tory Governments when it came to the amount of oil left and the cash the resource was expected to generate. Healey‟s comments brought a secret report, compiled by economist Gavin McCrone in 1974, back into the spotlight. The report had been commissioned by the then UK Government but was stamped secret for thirty years. It had re-emerged in 2005 after a Freedom of Information request was lodged by the SNP. The McCrone Report had concluded that oil would make an independ-ent Scotland embarrassingly rich. It said:

“The country would tend to be in chronic surplus to a quite embarrassing degree and its currency would become the hardest in Europe…” “An exchange rate of £1 Scots to 120p sterling within two years of independence therefore seems quite probable.” “Thus, for the first time since the Act of Union was passed, it can now be credibly argued that Scotland‟s economic ad-vantage lies in its repeal.” “Britain is now counting so heavily on North Sea Oil to re-dress its balance of payments that it is easy to imagine Eng-land in dire straits without it.”

Historic comments from former Labour ministers also emerged which bol-stered Healey‟s claims that figures given at the time were too low. In 1978, former Labour Prime Minister James Callaghan said that “total reve-nue yield from the North Sea, including gas, would approach £4bn a year by the mid-1980s”. In reality by 1985 the revenue was three times that at just over £12billion. Labour MP Tony Benn - a former Secretary of State for Ener-gy - also claimed North Sea Oil would generate £2billion to £3billion a year from 1980. In fact it generated £2.3bn, £3.7bn, £6.4bn, £7.8bn and £8.7bn a year from 1980-1984. The Healey story should have dominated BBC coverage for several days. The Labour peer had essentially confirmed what Nationalists had been claiming for decades, that the Labour party and the Conservative party had lied to Scot-tish voters on the issue of North Sea Oil. But, despite its very clear relevance to the independence debate, and its newsworthiness, BBC Scotland showed little interest in Healey‟s admission. The day the Healey story broke, the cor-poration was busy headlining another attack on Scottish independence.

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The UK Treasury report into the viability of an independent Scotland‟s finan-cial sector dominated headlines throughout the day on BBC Scotland and was repeated in regular news bulletins on TV and radio. A broadcast by BBC Scot-land reporter Glenn Campbell was almost two minutes long - considerably longer than the 15 seconds the same reporter would spend on the Healey reve-lations. The Healey story came and went with few voters even noticing. Oil played a major part in the referendum campaign. The Yes campaign por-trayed it as an additional resource which could be invested for the future. The No campaign portrayed it as a finite resource that was singlehandedly under-pinning the Scottish economy but was running out. The keyword for the No campaign was usually volatility. BBC Scotland‟s reticence to focus on oil had disappeared by July 2013. Oil seeped into the BBC news on July 24th when the broadcaster announced it had obtained a so-called „leaked‟ report.

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The document had been „leaked‟ to BBC Scotland reporter Raymond Buchan-an. In an online article the BBC man wrote:

“A leaked Scottish government document looking at energy policy in an independent Scotland has been seen by the BBC. It is the second time in a year that unauthorised information has emerged from the department of Finance Secretary John Swinney. This latest document, marked "RESTRICTED - DRAFT Scotland's En-ergy Future" appears to be a policy paper the Scottish government plans to release later this month.”

The document wasn‟t particularly surprising and it wasn‟t about oil. It focused on Scotland‟s renewable potential and highlighted an over-reliance on "dam-aging, price volatile fossil fuels". The draft document also argued that a great-er acceptance of renewable energy could help other parts of the UK. The Scot-tish government was already arguing that a single energy market encompass-ing a newly independent Scotland and the remainder of the UK was in the best interests of everyone. The document contained the following:

“The shared regulation of a single GB-wide energy market, by the new Scottish regulator and the England and Wales regulator, presents the best approach for an independent Scotland. An independent Scotland will seek a new strategic energy partnership with the rest of the UK - a partnership of equals - where the UK and Scottish governments jointly steer policy towards the energy sector.”

None of it was news. Other than the melodramatic language used by the BBC reporter who was describing a "leaked Scottish government document" that "has been seen by the BBC", there was nothing of significant interest in his news report. On that evening's Reporting Scotland, presenter Jackie Bird introduced an item on the 'leak' with an extremely loaded interpretation of what the docu-ment said. In her introduction, she told viewers:

“It's only fair that people living in other parts of the UK continue to subsidise renewable energy projects in an independent Scotland. Well, that's according to a leaked Scottish government document.”

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Presenter Raymond Buchanan then appeared holding a copy of the leaked document which he held out as the camera closed in. Referring to the Scottish government‟s ambition for clean energy, Buchanan told viewers:

“And the way that green future can be achieved is mapped out over twenty four pages in this leaked Scottish government policy paper. In it, it says the country needs to move away from what it describes as damaging, price volatile, fossil fuels.”

At that very moment Buchanan moved the document away from the camera, to reveal in the distance, an oil rig.

Wait a moment. Wasn‟t this leaked document supposedly about renewable energy? If so then why had Raymond Buchanan choreographed such a blatant piece of theatre in front of a distant oil rig? In case they didn‟t catch the distant rig at first, viewers to Reporting Scotland were then presented with a close-up shot.

Buchanan then added:

“Not that controversial you might think, the UK Government say ener-gy prices are volatile too. But remember, we're in a long referendum campaign.”

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The reason for the oil rig became apparent when moments later Scottish La-bour MSP Iain Gray appeared on screen.

Speaking on camera, Gray said:

“The common sense thing is that we avoid a situation where a separate Scotland has an economy which is fifteen to twenty per cent dependent on such a volatile commodity as oil; that is common sense.”

The Scottish Labour party were trying to conflate the renewable energy docu-ment with North Sea Oil revenue. Scottish government Finance Secretary John Swinney also appeared on camera. Confining his comments to the issue of renewables, he said:

“What the report demonstrates is that independence opens up the op-portunities for Scotland to become an even more significant player in the energy market in the international community and we have every possibility of realising the economic benefits for Scotland as a conse-quence of having the financial and economic leavers at our disposal that will come with independence.”

It was becoming clearer. The use of the oil rig had nothing to do with the Scot-tish government‟s plans for the renewable sector or even its argument for a single energy market. It had been used in order to reinforce Labour MSP Iain Gray‟s message regarding volatility in the price of oil. Claiming the Scottish economy was over reliant on oil was a constant theme of the anti-independence Better Together campaign. BBC Scotland had helped shoehorn it into the item on renewables. But what relevance had the document to the wider issue of North Sea Oil? The only link appeared to be a reference to the volatility of fossil fuels. Indeed in his item for Reporting Scotland, Raymond Buchanan had revealed the distant oil rig at the precise moment he said - “damaging, price volatile, fossil fuels.”

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Fossil fuels in the context of energy could be gas, coal or oil. But oil wasn‟t ex-tensively used to produce electricity in Scotland. The whole thing looked sus-picious and those suspicions grew when the following day the Herald newspa-per revealed that the leaked document had in fact been passed to the BBC by the anti-independence group Better Together. Now, there was nothing wrong with one of the sides in the constitutional de-bate handing over material to a reporter. Leaks are the lifeblood of honest journalism and have led to corruption and abuse being exposed. But a docu-ment isn‟t guaranteed to be newsworthy simply by dint of having been leaked, and it certainly isn‟t newsworthy if its contents have to be misrepresented in order to make it newsworthy. But that‟s what had happened. The „fossil fuel volatility‟ phrase was the „revelation‟ that underpinned Iain Gray‟s attack on the Scottish government over oil. Better Together had hand-ed the report to the BBC in the hope the corporation would help conflate fossil fuel volatility with North Sea revenue. An official statement from the Better Together group made its intention clear:

“This leaked paper yet again makes public the private concern of SNP ministers about the volatility and instability of oil prices. The tax we get from the North Sea is so volatile that the difference be-tween the highest and lowest years is the equivalent of Scotland‟s NHS budget.”

The document of course had nothing to do with North Sea Oil. The Scottish government was concerned with the cost of producing electricity from coal; gas and oil fired power stations. If oil price was partly the focus of the report then it is reasonable to assume that the concern was more about the price shooting up, something Unionists were keen not to draw attention to. The suggestion that the report was anything other than confirmation of the Scottish government‟s drive towards renewables was risible. In 2013 Scotland generated more electricity through renewables than from fossil fuels – 5.7GW and 5.4GW respectively. But just how newsworthy was the „volatile fossil fuel prices‟ remark? Well it turned out not to have been newsworthy at all. The concern over fossil fuel prices was contained in a Scottish government docu-ment published three years previous which contained the following:

Despite the obvious potential for the development and deployment of renewable and low carbon technologies, there remain significant bar-riers to be overcome to ensure a clean, affordable and secure electricity supply that is required to meet climate change targets whilst delivering economic benefits for Scotland.

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Continued: In addition to addressing the root causes of the challenges facing in-dustry, there are other strong arguments for governments intervening in the energy markets, such as maintaining secure energy supplies, reducing exposure to high and volatile fossil fuel prices and creating new jobs and businesses.

The „leaked‟ report contained an almost identical line of thought:

The transition to renewable energy reduces our dependence on damag-ing price-volatile fossil fuels, bringing greater stability in energy prices for consumers.

So, the information presented by the BBC in melodramatic fashion and which was subsequently used by Unionists in order to attack the Scottish govern-ment‟s oil arguments, was three years old. It was simply made to look new and damaging. The „volatile fossil fuel‟ aspect was not the only rehashed piece of information the BBC news item contained. The belief that consumers south of the border would continue to purchase Scottish renewable generated electricity was also already in the public domain. In fact it was a well-established argument from the SNP and had been attacked by Unionists several times. On the cost of renewables, the leaked report said:

It is equitable that these costs continue to be shared among consumers in Scotland and the rest of the UK.

Whilst there was an argument that the use of the term “equitable” made the statement newsworthy, the BBC decided to adopt wholly emotive language by insisting the Scottish government was seeking a continuation of a „subsidy‟ from the rest of the UK. The SNP had argued many times that post-independence would see an inte-grated energy market that would allow a continuation of the export of Scottish electricity. Electricity generators would be guaranteed a price which would be passed on to customers through their household bills. At the time of the BBC broadcast, England could not generate the electricity it required and had to rely on Scottish „imports‟. So concerned was the UK Gov-ernment about the lack of capacity south of the border that in January 2013 it signed a deal that would see 3,000MW of renewable Irish electricity trans-ferred via undersea cable to Wales where it would enter the National Grid.

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At the time of his broadcast on Reporting Scotland, Newsnet Scotland de-scribed Raymond Buchanan‟s „leak‟ as “collusion” between the BBC and the anti-independence campaign Better Together. Whether it was or not I cannot say. What I can say is that it was yet another example of manipulation of news by the BBC which ultimately benefited the No campaign. In August 2014 BBC Scotland was at the centre of another news „blackout‟ claim involving the issue of oil. On Tuesday August 20th a story broke. Oil ty-coon Sir Ian Wood had given an interview to energy magazine Energy Voice. In the interview the businessman accused the Scottish government of exagger-ating its estimates in relation to the amount of recoverable oil left in the North Sea. According to Sir Ian, the Scottish government figure of 24 billion barrels of oil was sixty per cent too high, and the actual figure was 16.5bn.

Wood also estimated production would be down to a sixth of the current levels by 2050. The interview was treated as a major news item by BBC Scotland. It went to the top of the news agenda and stayed there for days. Sir Ian‟s com-ments featured on every BBC Scotland news and current affairs programme - TV and Radio. In the interview the tycoon also warned that revenue in an in-dependent Scotland would be hit and that household bills would increase:

“The loss of significant offshore oil and gas tax revenues as the North Sea runs down will have a big impact on our economy, jobs and bal-ance of payments, with significant increases in household energy bills - and a very adverse impact on the legacy for future generations in an independent Scotland.”

He added:

“It means our young voters must be fully aware that by the time they are middle aged, Scotland will have little offshore oil and gas produc-tion and this will seriously hit our economy, jobs and public services. What's more, the rundown impact will begin to be felt by 2030, which is only 15 years from now.”

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Wood‟s comments were, as you‟d expect, seized on by the anti-independence campaign. Better Together leader Alistair Darling said:

“Coming from such a respected internationally renowned expert on North Sea Oil, this news fatally undermines what Alex Salmond has been saying about oil and completely vindicates our analysis. Sir Ian Wood's comments blow apart Alex Salmond's plans for funding schools and hospitals. It is devastating for his ridiculous claims on pensions and on jobs. Alex Salmond has acknowledged that Sir Ian Wood must be listened to when he is talking about North Sea Oil.”

There was nothing irregular in the BBC‟s decision to headline the tycoon‟s comments. Wood was a respected figure in the oil and gas sector and had, un-til the interview, stayed out of the independence debate. His intervention was unexpected and was most certainly newsworthy. But was his attack on the Scottish government justified? Had the figure of 24 billion barrels, said by Wood to be an exaggeration, come from the SNP administration? The answer was no. The figure had in fact been supplied by industry body Oil and Gas UK. Within days of Sir Ian giving his interview, the body hit back. Speaking to the Herald newspaper days after the interview, a spokesperson for Oil and Gas UK said:

“We note Sir Ian Wood's view that between 15 and 16.5 billion barrels of oil and gas may be produced from the UKCS (UK Continental Shelf). Oil & Gas UK, however, believes there is a broader range of possible outcomes and we remain of the view that there could be up to 24bn barrels of oil and gas to recover.”

Sir Ian‟s estimates were also challenged by leading oil and gas expert Professor Alex Kemp who said:

“With further technological progress and oil prices higher than current levels it can reasonably be expected that many of these fields will be-come viable before 2050. This should also apply to new discoveries from future exploration. Thus the ultimate potential of 24 billion barrels of oil equivalent fore-seen by Oil and Gas UK appears plausible.”

Bizarrely, Wood himself admitted his own figure of 16.5bn could be too low. Speaking to the Herald on August 23rd, the retired head of the Wood Group admitted that there could in fact be as much as 18 billion barrels still to be re-covered.

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He told the paper:

“If you said to me is 18 [billion] possible, I would say probably just.” I waited for BBC Scotland to report the new developments. I waited in vain. Unlike Sir Ian‟s attack on the Scottish government, there were no high profile news headlines for the responses. BBC Scotland showed no interest in report-ing the alternate views. In a further intervention Alex Russell, the Professor of Petroleum Accounting at Robert Gordon University in Aberdeen, and Peter Strachan, Professor of Energy Policy at Robert Gordon University, issued statements saying figures used to attack independence were an “understatement” and “ludicrously pes-simistic”. The respected academics described the potential of as yet unex-plored areas of the North Sea as “a lucrative venture for the oil industry.” Despite having given blanket coverage of comments made by Sir Ian who said the 24bn figure was a “distortion”, the BBC refused to report the counter claims from Oil and Gas UK and the three academics. The situation was re-peated on Monday when comments from yet another academic challenged Sir Ian over possible new discoveries. Professor John Howell of Aberdeen Uni-versity, an expert on geology, said massive reserves could lie close to Shetland. Professor Howell said:

“I certainly will not be surprised if major discoveries are made there in the next few years, totally changing the perception of the region and opening up a second major oil boom for Scotland.”

Despite the intervention of four highly respected academics and the leading offshore-industry body in the UK, BBC Scotland refused to report the state-ments. It was, in effect, a news blackout. It had happened before of course on more than one occasion. However, this time the BBC was challenged directly. The editor of Newsnet Scotland sent a complaint to the head of BBC Scotland‟s Referendum Unit, John Mullin. It read:

Given the coverage afforded Sir Ian Wood's comments on oil reserves and their relevance to the independence debate, I would be grateful if you could explain why statements from the industry and academics that challenge Sir Ian's views have not been reported in a similar manner. Indeed it would appear a news blackout has been put in place at the BBC.

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Continued: I refer to Oil and Gas UK who have said they "remain of the view that there could be up to 24 billion barrels of oil and gas to recover." The body issued the statement in response to an attack by Sir Ian Wood on the Scottish government after it had used the same figure in its esti-mates. In Scotland on Sunday, Alex Russell, the Professor of Petroleum Ac-counting at Robert Gordon University in Aberdeen, and Peter Stra-chan, Professor of Energy Policy at RGU made similar comments that challenged Sir Ian's claims. Today the Herald newspaper carried on its front page yet another re-spected academic putting an alternative viewpoint to that expressed by Sir Ian on the issue of possible new discoveries.

Within one hour of the complaint being sent, an online article was published on the BBC Scotland website. The article headline stated: Scottish inde-pendence: Academics back higher North Sea Oil estimate

The article began:

A projection by industry body Oil and Gas UK that 24bn barrels of oil can be extracted from the North Sea is "plausible", two academics have said. The projection has been used by the Scottish government as part of its campaign for independence.

Publication of the article had followed growing anger and frustration on social media at the one sided reporting by BBC Scotland. Hundreds of people re-tweeted messages from Newsnet Scotland calling for an end to the oil black-out. Despite the publication of the article, there was never any high profile BBC broadcast coverage given to the challenges to Sir Ian.

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There was a final ironic twist to the story. The figure of 24 billion barrels of oil had indeed been provided by industry body Oil & Gas UK, but it wasn‟t the first time such a figure had been mentioned. Indeed it wasn‟t even the highest estimate of the amount of oil remaining in the North Sea. In 2012 a leading industry figure had said there was 25 billion barrels still to come. That person was … Sir Ian Wood.

In a Newsnight Scotland interview, shown by the BBC in 2012, Sir Ian Wood argued that it was still possible to extract a further 25 billion barrels of oil from the North Sea. Speaking to BBC Scotland Business and Economy Editor Douglas Fraser he said:

“If you look ahead we could still produce another 25 billion barrels. And at one hundred dollars a barrel, that‟s 2,500 billion dollars.”

He added:

“The figures are staggering.” It was indeed staggering. In 2012 Wood himself had estimated 25 billion bar-rels could yet be recovered. Yet two years later he was on the BBC warning that an estimate of 24 billion was an exaggeration. Moreover, he had provided his 25 billion estimate in an interview with BBC Scotland‟s own Business and Economy Editor, Douglas Fraser. Yet nobody at BBC Scotland appeared to have noticed this uncomfortable fact when they headlined Wood‟s attack on the Scottish government.

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Watching BBC Scotland was, at times, like watching the USA broadcasting gi-ant Fox News. Fox was renowned in the USA for its tendency to favour the right-wing Republican Party over that party‟s Democrat rivals. In 2003 Amer-ican comedian Al Franken published a hilarious book that exposed the meth-ods used by Fox and other Right Wing media outlets in their reporting of poli-tics. The comedian highlighted the tendency of journalists to report stories and of pundits to comment on them, without either bothering to find out the facts. The book Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them became a cult classic in the States and is a must read to this day. The BBC‟s coverage of the independence referendum was just as lop-sided as Fox News coverage of US politics. Sadly though there was no Al Franken around to expose and ridicule the state broadcaster. All we could do was watch in amazement as truth became lies and lies became truth. At times it was difficult to distinguish between the opinions or analysis of BBC Scotland reporters and the campaign rhetoric of Better Together. Earlier in this chapter I highlighted analysis by BBC Scotland‟s Business and Economy Editor Douglas Fraser of a statement by ratings agency Fitch. The BBC re-porter had suggested any fiscal agreement between London and Edinburgh over spending and debt was counter to the point of independence. The line could have come straight out of the pro-Union handbook. Unionists were at-tempting to portray such deals as a watering down of independence, that the SNP was not offering „real independence‟. In November 2013, the same BBC Scotland reporter claimed that a Yes vote in the 2014 independence referendum could harm the prospects of shipbuilding on the Clyde. The reporter was considering the political fall-out following a shock announcement of job losses at BAE shipyards when he told listeners to Radio Scotland that the threat of a Yes vote meant the case could be made for the MoD to award shipbuilding contracts to yards south of the border. Ac-cording to the BBC Scotland reporter, a Yes vote could leave Scotland looking like a “foreign country”. He said:

“The case can be made that if the rest of the UK wants to maintain the capacity to build ships it may want to favour Portsmouth because if there‟s a Yes vote and Scotland becomes independent, the Clyde could look like a foreign country from the point of view of the Ministry of De-fence.”

It was classic No campaign rhetoric. The BBC reporter‟s claim that „foreign Scotland‟ could be blocked from winning naval contracts from the remainder of the UK echoed similar claims from pro-Union politicians.

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In January, Glasgow Labour MP Ian Davidson had said that shipbuilding on the Clyde would end if Scotland was independent. The Labour MP warned that if Scotland was to leave the UK then, “Scottish shipyards are doomed.” Scottish Labour leader Johann Lamont said it was, "inconceivable contracts for defence work will be let outside the United Kingdom". Scottish Secretary Alistair Carmichael had even appeared to argue that Portsmouth should be awarded naval contracts destined for the Clyde in the event of a Yes vote:

“If Scotland is no longer part of the country, then, yes, it is difficult to see how the work would go to Scotland.”

He added:

“If Scotland were to vote yes you would think that Portsmouth would be well placed in that circumstance.”

But did Douglas Fraser have any evidence beyond claims from Unionist politi-cians? Could, as the BBC Scotland reporter suggested, the remainder of the UK move orders from the Clyde yards to Portsmouth? Well no, it couldn‟t. Not without a significant refit. Portsmouth didn‟t have the capacity to construct the Type 46 vessels that were earmarked for the Scot-tish yards. Speaking days later, a spokesman for the company which owned the yards told the BBC that a decision to keep shipbuilding on the Clyde was “absolutely not” political and that the decision was a commercial one. BAE‟s Business and Transformation Director Charlie Blakemore said:

“The Clyde has been chosen purely based on industrial grounds, all to do with capacity, capability and skill-mix.”

And what of Fraser‟s claim that the MoD might view an independent Scotland as „foreign‟? Well it actually didn‟t matter how the MoD would have viewed Scotland, the decision on where to build the ships would be taken by the com-pany which had won the contract and that was BAE. The company had al-ready acknowledged the Clyde was its preferred location based on „capacity, capability and skill-mix‟. The BBC Scotland reporter could though have been referring to European Un-ion regulations that compelled member states to put contracts out to tender. This too had been cited by Unionists who argued a newly independent „foreign‟ Scotland would have to compete with other countries for naval contracts. But the claims weren‟t strictly true. EU competition law - known as Article 346 - allowed for orders to be completed in Scotland provided the Westminster Government said it was for national security reasons.

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In fact the „foreign yard‟ claim was blown apart a week later when a UK Gov-ernment Minister confirmed just that. On November 12th 2013, Conservative Minister Andrew Murrison appeared before the Westminster Committee which had been set up in order to scruti-nise Scottish independence. Asked about EU Article 346 and whether the rest of the UK could place naval orders with a yard out-with its borders without a need to go through a tendering process, Dr Murrison said:

“I think the answer is technically yes, if it was in our national interests to do so”.

Pressed if this meant that the Clydeside yards could indeed be awarded rUK naval contracts, the minister replied:

“Yes … You‟d have to make a case that the residual UK‟s defence is best secured by placing that contract with that particular yard.”

Asked if a case could be made that the Clyde was best placed compared to oth-er foreign yards, the former Royal Naval Medical Officer answered:

“Well I suppose you could make a case around transferrable skills, you could possibly make a case around a notion that SMEs and other con-sequential businesses in the supply chain might be within Great Britain for example,”

Dr Murrison also admitted that “significant investment” would be required at Portsmouth before complex warships could be transferred from Scotland in the event of a Yes vote and that the UK Government or BAE Systems would need to “invest fairly heavily” if another yard in Barrow was to be used. The SMEs referred to by the minister were small to medium sized enterprises that formed part of the overall supply chain. The ships may well be built on the Clyde, but there were scores of smaller businesses involved in the process, many south of the border. If the naval contract, which could no longer be completed in England, didn‟t go to Scotland then hundreds of English jobs would be lost. Murrison had effectively destroyed many, if not all, of the No campaign claims relating to shipbuilding. So did the minister‟s testimony to the Scottish Affairs Committee make it onto BBC Scotland news? Well yes it did, but not in the way you might imagine. BBC Scotland ran a news report within hours of the UK Government Minister appearing. But the report wasn‟t about shipbuilding … it was about the cost of removing Trident.

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The opening sentences of the article read:

It would be "murderously expensive" to remove Britain's nuclear de-terrent from Scotland in the event of independence, a UK defence min-ister has said. Andrew Murrison's comments came as he gave evidence to Westmin-ster's Scottish affairs committee.

BBC Scotland had contrived to ignore Murrison‟s very relevant comments on shipbuilding and had instead decided to headline another attack on independ-ence. The refusal to even mention the minister‟s shipbuilding comments was even more appalling given the issue of shipbuilding and jobs was dominating news across the UK. Days earlier BAE Systems had confirmed about 800 jobs would be cut at its three Scottish yards at Govan and Scotstoun in Glasgow, and Rosyth in Fife. The firm also said 940 staff posts and 170 agency workers would go at the Portsmouth facility. The BAE announcement meant Portsmouth‟s days as a shipbuilding yard were effectively over. It should have ended the debate over whether naval contracts would continue to come to Scotland in the event of independence. But it didn‟t. It didn‟t even prevent BBC Scotland‟s own presenters from claiming independence was a threat to shipbuilding. In July 2014, James Naughtie, who by then was presenting BBC Scotland‟s Good Morning Scotland radio show repeated the anti-independence ship-building claim during an interview with a representative of pro-Yes organisa-tion Business for Scotland.

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In the exchange which touched on defence contracts, Naughtie said:

“If there were two separate countries then it would be unlikely the Royal Navy would place contracts outside the rest of the UK … for ma-jor warship contracts.”

BBC Scotland continued to promote the shipbuilding claims right up until three days before the referendum itself.

Too Wee, Too Poor One of the most enduring arguments put forward by opponents of Scottish in-dependence was that the country couldn‟t afford it. The claim that Scotland was subsidised by England wasn‟t dreamt up for the referendum campaign, it went back decades. In 1988, the late Donald Dewar, when shadow Secretary of State for Scotland, suggested an independent Scotland would have an econ-omy similar to Bangladesh. Dewar‟s remark had followed a shock defeat for Labour after Jim Sillars won the Govan by-election for the SNP. The amount Unionists claimed Scotland would „lose‟ if Yes triumphed in the referendum varied. In April 2011 the Labour party claimed independence would cost Scotland a whopping £13.75bn. In 2014 the shortfall had shrunk to a mere £8.6bn.

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The amounts weren‟t important. What was critical to Unionism maintaining its grip on Scotland was that the electorate had to be persuaded Scotland was just too poor to sustain the level of public spending it currently „enjoyed‟. Any suggestion that Scotland could be a thriving independent country with first class public services and a high standard of living, had to be shot down. It was actually nonsense to say that Scotland had been subsidised. The coun-try more than paid its way, and had done so for years. In November 2013, Gordon MacIntyre-Kemp, writing on the pro-Yes Business for Scotland website, said:

For generations the people of Scotland have been fed a negative narra-tive on the health of Scotland‟s economy. A depressing picture has been drawn by Westminster politicians of Scotland as a subsidised state dependent on the UK for charitable hand-outs with higher levels of debt and a dependency on the public sector. Scotland has been told that without the generosity of the UK to bail us out, Scotland would be a bankrupt nation, unable to meet the very basic needs and wants of its people. The reasons given for this belief seem to be a mix of Scotland being too “small” a country, not having the skills, resources and infrastructure, the wrong type of industry (too much manufacturing and exporting) and therefore too much debt.

We also now know from Scotland‟s national accounts - Government Expenditure and Revenue Scotland (GERS) - that every single year for the last 32 years Scotland‟s tax revenue generation per head has been higher than all the other UK nations. This is solid proof that oil price volatility isn‟t a problem, for if it was, then at least once in 32 years Scotland‟s revenues would have dropped below the average for the rest of the UK but it never did. Last year, for example, Scotland generated 9.9% of the UK‟s total tax revenue with only 8.4% of the UK population. When you add in the Barnett Formula, our share of the UK expenditure rises to around 9.3% last year, £4.4 billion short of the figure that Scotland would have had to spend if we had received 9.9%.

Official figures also showed that in the five years to 2013, Scotland's public fi-nances had been stronger than the UK as a whole by a total of £12.6 billion - almost £2,400 per head. These figures were rarely headlined by BBC Scot-land. The corporation treated positive independence stories in the same man-ner Superman treated Kryptonite. In the summer of 2014 the BBC carried out analysis of Scotland‟s contribution to the UK economy. On Monday July 21st the analysis was published.

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The report, headlined „Scottish independence: How would the UK fare without Scotland?‟ contained comparisons between a United Kingdom with and without Scotland. It showed, far from being a drag on the rest of the UK, Scotland actually boosted UK GDP to the tune of £282.50 per head. With Scotland part of the UK, the figure per-head was £21,577.22. However if Scot-land were to become independent it showed that GDP in the rest of the UK would drop to £21,294.72.

Claims that Scotland would suffer economically in the event of independence were a central plank of the anti-independence campaign. Those campaigning for a No vote had argued that a Yes vote would leave Scotland poorer and fac-ing cuts to public services. This analysis appeared to challenge the claims. We were just two months away from the referendum and polls were narrowing - it was going to be close. Every little boost to their campaigns was being seized on by both camps. The report was timely. But then something odd happened. Within 24 hours of the BBC analysis being published, it was amended. The figures were altered. According to the new figures, UK GDP with Scotland included was £21,287, but without Scotland it improved £117, to £21,404. An independent Scotland was no longer detri-mental to the UK. The change meant the BBC had wiped almost £400 per head from Scotland‟s GDP.

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But was the amended article accurate? Not according to figures available at the time, which showed Scottish GDP in 2013 to be around £150bn whilst for the UK over the same period it was around £1650bn. Official figures suggest-ed Scotland, with 8.4% of the UK population, was contributing over 9% of UK GDP. Other figures published by the Scottish government confirmed Scotland‟s GDP per head was £26,500 which was far better than that of the UK‟s total of £23,800. Why had someone at the BBC altered the original figures to show Scotland, not as a net contributor which it was, but as a net benefactor? It was even odder given that an article published by the BBC eight months ear-lier had clearly shown Scottish GDP better than that of the UK.

What prompted the alteration will probably never be known. An acknowl-edgement that there had been a change to the figures was later added to the bottom of the BBC web page.

An earlier version of this article misrepresented some data on life ex-pectancy and GDP. This has now been amended.

The reference to the effect on the UK‟s GDP of Scottish independence was eventually removed altogether from the analysis. In chapter six I briefly mentioned an organisation that had long been a thorn in the side of the Scottish government. That organisation was the Confedera-tion of British Industry … or CBI for short. The CBI, as you may recall, was a right of centre lobbying group based in London.

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The CBI‟s Scottish branch was headed by someone called Iain McMillan. McMillan was no fan of the SNP and no fan of Scottish Devolution. In 1996, prior to the creation of the Scottish Parliament, McMillan had said:

“The creation of another parliament, with its attendant costs and bu-reaucracy, would carry more risks for business than benefits. The tax proposals contain structural weaknesses and could lead to extra costs and disadvantages for Scottish business.”

Asked whether CBI feared devolution would damage inward investment, Mr McMillan replied:

“A lot of money has been invested in Scotland by these companies. If they do not like the political and economic environment in which they wish to operate, then they will look elsewhere.”

Despite his 1996 warnings stubbornly refusing to materialise, McMillan‟s credibility remained intact as far as BBC Scotland was concerned. His attack on SNP plans for more powers for Scotland just before the 2007 Scottish elec-tion, filled BBC headlines.

After the SNP‟s narrow 2007 win, McMillan continued to launch attacks on the new administration‟s constitutional agenda. In December 2010 in a „New Year Message‟ he famously described the new Scottish government‟s National Conversation on the constitution as having “no legitimacy”. McMillan claimed that, as a minority administration, the democratically elect-ed Scottish government had no right to consult the Scottish people on the na-tion‟s future. He said:

“The Scottish government, as a minority administration, proceeded with the National Conversation in defiance of the will of the Scottish Parliament.”

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His attack made it onto BBC Scotland news.

In the article, written by BBC Scotland‟s Business and Economy Editor Doug-las Fraser, McMillan accused the SNP Government of:

“Expending energy and taxpayers' money on a National Conversation, principally about Scotland seceding from the United Kingdom - a con-versation that the Scottish Parliament did not vote for, and a future outside the UK that a majority of Scots do not want.”

Commenting on BBC Radio Scotland at the time, Fraser described McMillan‟s questioning of independence as “reasonably awkward”. The BBC Scotland re-porter accused the Scottish government of giving CBI Scotland, “the most grief”. Fraser said:

“Because of this constitutional debate that‟s going on and CBI Scotland taking a very prominent role in asking what are sometimes quite rea-sonably awkward questions of claims that have been made for inde-pendence - that tends to make it the organisation that gets the most grief from the SNP Government.”

McMillan popped up regularly on BBC Scotland, where he was usually de-scribed by the broadcaster as a „business leader‟. The label was generous given the CBI represented fewer than ten per cent of Scottish businesses. His and his organisation‟s criticisms of independence were a regular theme of the BBC‟s referendum coverage. The CBI, like the BBC itself, insisted it was impartial. Its „criticisms‟ of inde-pendence were merely a reflection of concerns expressed by its members, it said. Few believed the protestations.

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The claim to be voicing the concerns of his Scottish membership landed McMillan in hot water in January 2012. The CBI Scotland Chief had claimed that member businesses were “at one” on calls for an early referendum vote. McMillan made the claim following a meeting in Edinburgh with Scottish Sec-retary Michael Moore which had been attended by many of the CBI‟s member businesses in Scotland. Speaking after the event, McMillan issued a statement in which he said:

“This was a broader turnout from membership, and the mood in that regard was very much at one with the position of the council of CBI Scotland - and that is that the referendum should be held sooner rather than later. All the issues around that were fairly clear in our own minds. We live in very difficult economic circumstances. At the moment we see some firms closing down, we see people losing their jobs. As I said in my new year message, we need our politicians of all the parties from both jurisdictions to focus their entire attention on getting people back to work and getting our economy back in good shape.”

McMillan had also launched an attack on plans for a shared currency should Scots vote Yes:

“The problem with Scotland having its own currency is that there would then be an exchange rate between Scotland and England. Doing business at the moment across the border between Scotland and Eng-land is very straightforward to do. We share the same currency; by and large we share the same laws and rules of England. It‟s very straightforward. If Scotland has a different currency, cross-border business would have to take into account exchange rates, the cost of exchange, the risk of the exchange rate moving. There would have to be hedging to manage the risks of dealing in a separate currency. I think that would make doing business across the border much, much more difficult than it is at the moment. Nearly 50% of all Scotland‟s exports are to England, not the outside world. That would be a very, very difficult position for Scot-land to be in.”

The CBI Scotland Chief even questioned whether the Scottish government had the power to hold a referendum on independence:

“It is highly questionable whether the Scottish government has the au-thority to hold a referendum, and indeed the Scottish Parliament, to legislate for one.”

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It was a highly politicised statement and one which was far from impartial. However within days McMillan was forced to admit that his claims of unity amongst members for the views he had expressed were false when several business figures at the meeting issued public statements challenging his com-ments. One businessman told the Sunday Herald newspaper it was "absolutely not the case" that all of the firms wanted an early vote. The newspaper reported that there had in fact been a broad range of opinions expressed. Present at the meeting had been representatives of Barclays Wealth, Edrington, Aquamarine Power and the Law Society of Scotland. According to the newspaper, a spokesman for Barclays Wealth said:

“Barclays is agnostic on the timing of a referendum on Scottish inde-pendence and has never expressed a view on this subject.”

A spokesman for Edrington, said:

“Edrington didn‟t express any views at the meeting. We were there to listen to the Secretary of State outline his thinking on the consultation.”

Martin McAdam, chief executive of Edinburgh-based wave energy company Aquamarine Power, said it was "absolutely not the case" there had been agreement on timing, and he had told the meeting he felt strongly it was for the SNP Government to decide.

“I have no idea how he [McMillan] came to arrive at that. There‟s no way that I could say that all the members who were present at the meeting had a single view in relation to the timing of the referendum. That was not the case. The fate of any referendum should be with the people of Scotland.”

Law Society of Scotland Chief executive Lorna Jack said:

“The Society has not publicly expressed its view on the referendum, apart from to say that the legal position is not clear but we will be re-sponding to the referendum consultations.”

It wasn‟t the first time the CBI‟s Scottish Chief had been accused of misrepre-senting the views of his Scottish members. In June 2010 one of Scotland‟s most successful businessmen challenged the CBI Scotland Chief after McMil-lan attacked Full Fiscal Autonomy for Scotland. McMillan had publicly con-demned plans, saying:

“But fiscal autonomy means that the UK‟s unitary tax system would become fragmented and businesses' compliance costs would increase as a result,”

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Jim McColl, of engineering firm Clyde Blowers accused McMillan of misrepre-senting the views of Scottish businesses, and said:

“The CBI in Scotland I think have got significantly less than 10% of the business leaders in Scotland. Iain won't have polled his members - I know many of them and I know their views are supportive of what I'm saying. This is a statement by an individual who administers a business organ-isation in Scotland. It's not representative of business in Scotland in general.”

Back in 1997 Iain McMillan had been similarly criticised after making exag-gerated claims about business worries relating to the then devolution referen-dum. McMillan had said that all 54 CBI Scotland members at a meeting had expressed reservations about proposed tax raising powers for the Scottish par-liament. However it later transpired that 30 of the companies cited by the CBI Scotland Chief had not even attended the meeting. Despite the very clear constitutional stance adopted by the CBI both north and south of the border, and its limited membership in Scotland, the BBC persist-ed in presenting CBI spokespeople as neutral representatives of businesses across the whole country. The corporation continued to headline attacks on independence from senior CBI figures.

However its stance on independence was about to see the CBI embroiled in one of the most embarrassing episodes of the whole referendum campaign. It would also call into question the impartiality of the BBC itself.

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On Friday April 18th 2014, exactly five months before the independence refer-endum, the CBI issued a statement:

“The CBI has clearly stated its position in the Scottish referendum de-bate, that Scotland and the rest of the UK are stronger together as part of the union. We have registered this with the Electoral Commission in accordance with the law.”

The statement merely served to confirm what most people had long suspected, that the CBI was indeed in favour of Scotland remaining in the Union. The an-ti-independence Better Together campaign issued a statement that same day:

“Over the last few months, employer after employer have raised legit-imate concerns and asked genuine questions about what leaving the UK would mean for their businesses and for Scottish jobs.”

But things were about to turn sour for the CBI. No sooner had the announce-ment been made than some Scottish members expressed disquiet. There were claims they had not been consulted. Responding to the announcement, Tony Banks, a CBI member and Chair of the pro-independence group Business for Scotland, said:

“It is abundantly clear that the CBI is not representing its members‟ views honestly. I am therefore writing to the Director General John Cridland today withdrawing my company membership. It has attempted to hijack its members without proper consultation on their views and many must now feel they are in an impossible position. There should have been a transparent sign-off by all members in the same way as Business for Scotland asks each of its members to sign the Business Declaration in favour of independence.”

Other companies began to follow. Many organisations were angry, and some voiced fears the decision to formally campaign against independence had compromised their own neutrality. A day after the CBI revealed it was to for-mally back a No vote, Scottish broadcaster STV announced it was resigning its CBI membership. A spokeswoman for STV said:

“STV is a public service broadcaster with a duty of impartiality and as such we have no corporate or editorial position on the independence referendum in September. In light of CBI Scotland‟s decision to register with the Electoral Com-mission we have no choice but to resign our membership of CBI Scot-land forthwith.”

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It was turning into a nightmare for the CBI. The organisation‟s claim to be neutral lay in tatters and there was an exodus of Scottish members. The Better Together campaign also showed signs of panic and launched an attack against STV. The Better Together spokesperson said:

“The CBI has been asking questions about independence for years without a peep from STV.”

STV was accused of having a secret deal with the SNP.

“It‟s almost as if STV are worried a little too much about their relation-ship with the SNP.”

By April 22nd, a further five organisations had quit in protest at the body‟s de-cision to officially join the campaign against Scottish independence. The Law Society of Scotland, Strathclyde and Glasgow Caledonian universities, High-lands and Islands Enterprise and Skills Development Scotland became the lat-est to resign. They joined STV, Scottish Enterprise, Visit Scotland and Glas-gow, Aberdeen and Edinburgh universities who had all quit the CBI over the Easter break. But then the story was to take a dramatic and unexpected twist. On Thursday April 24th it emerged that the BBC itself was a member of the CBI. The mem-bership was revealed by BBC reporter James Cook. According to Cook the corporation had been a secret member for years and had been paying the CBI a membership fee of £22,191.94 per year. It was hugely embarrassing for the BBC. The news that the BBC was a CBI member was not accompanied as one might have expected, with an announcement by the state broadcaster that it was quitting the CBI immediately, but rather the BBC let it be known it was con-sidering its position. Why had the broadcaster not resigned as STV had done? Later that day, following growing pressure, the BBC announced its intention to suspend its own membership of the CBI. However, in a move which some viewed as controversial, the corporation refused to follow the decision of STV and resign immediately. It instead declared its intention to remain a full member until May 30th, which was the date of the official referendum cam-paigning period. The belated decision meant the BBC remained a member of an organisation which had taken a stance on the independence referendum. The prevarication left the BBC open to accusations that the licence fee was being used in order to subsidise anti-independence campaign material.

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The CBI website still contained several pages of pro-Union literature, which include articles written by Director-General John Cridland in which he claimed "we are stronger together", a No campaign slogan. Remember also, the BBC had for years portrayed the CBI as a politically neutral organisation voicing the concerns of its members. If this was true then the CBI was speak-ing on behalf of the BBC. The BBC was opposing independence by proxy. The BBC‟s refusal to resign its membership of the CBI led to claims from the National Union of Journalists that the situation was damaging the work of its journalists and undermining the corporation‟s impartiality. In a letter to BBC Director General Tony Hall, the NUJ wrote:

“The BBC, through licence-payers‟ money, is helping to fund an organi-sation which is taking a strong position for the union, and against in-dependence. That makes doing our job very difficult.”

Paul Holloran, Scottish NUJ Organiser, said:

“There was a real concern and anxiety about the damage that CBI membership is causing. Journalists are already under enough pres-sure without being caught up in a shambles that is not of their mak-ing.”

A day after the BBC revelation, the episode turned to outright farce. On April 25th John Cridland claimed the decision to register as a formal supporter of the No campaign had been made in error. The CBI Chief also confirmed that the lobbying organisation had asked the Electoral Commission to nullify its application. Cridland said the decision to register with the Electoral Commission had been made without his knowledge and that the CBI was "politically independent and impartial". In an interview with the BBC, Cridland denied any knowledge of the decision to register. The CBI chief said:

“We should not have registered in the first place, it was not an author-ised decision, it was a mistake.”

He added:

“Once the CBI Board and I knew on Good Friday that registration had actually happened, which we didn‟t know, we took urgent legal advice and that legal advice showed that the CBI needed to be deregistered, the decision wasn‟t the right decision and wasn‟t an authorised deci-sion to take.”

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According to the CBI chief, the registration documentation was signed by "an official in our London office" that he said had "opened a Pandora‟s box of un-expected consequences". However, Mr Cridland‟s claim the he did not know about the decision to register, and that it was taken by a lone junior official, was contradicted in an interview he had already given to the BBC three days earlier. Interviewed on Radio 4 on Tuesday April 22nd, he said:

“This is a really key point. We took a decision that we needed to com-ply with the Electoral Commission‟s regulations. Clearly like any other organisation, we are an independent organisa-tion, but like any other organisation, we have to operate within the law, and the decision we took is that simply to do our normal activities ... between now and the referendum, we were advised we needed to comply with the Electoral Commission‟s rules because we have a posi-tion on the issues.”

Cridland‟s excuses looked wafer thin. Indeed investigations carried out by online news site Newsnet Scotland would uncover facts which would cast doubt on the CBI Director-General‟s version of events. It emerged that the CBI's application to become a registered participant in the independence ref-erendum was not signed by one junior official but by two of the group‟s most senior officials. The Electoral Commission (EC) revealed that the group‟s request to register as an official backer of the „No‟ campaign was sanctioned by its head of political campaigns, Richard Maughan, and senior campaigns advisor, Jon Harrison.

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Maughan was Senior Political Adviser in the office of the Director-General at the CBI. He oversaw the CBI‟s relationships with government and parliament and supported CBI staff on political relations and corporate projects. In Janu-ary 2014, three months prior to the application, Maughan represented the CBI in front of a Scottish Parliamentary Committee. A Freedom of Information request also revealed that in November 2013 and January 2014 the Electoral Commission had held discussions with the CBI about the rules on referendum campaigning, the registration requirements and advice on registering. The FoI response suggested the CBI had been warned by the Electoral Commission that if it continued intervening in the ref-erendum debate, it risked being deemed an official campaign organisation. On April 23rd, Electoral Commission Chair, Jenny Watson relayed details of a conversation she had held with Mr Cridland the day before the CBI boss offi-cially requested the CBI's application be nullified. She told colleagues Crid-land believed:

“…that they [CBI] should never in any case have registered and the correct approach would have been to listen to our advice and adapt their plans accordingly in order to ensure that they were not at risk of becoming involved in activity which would cause them to be regulat-ed.”

Further enquiries by Newsnet Scotland revealed emails had been exchanged between the CBI and Electoral Commission prior to the meetings in November 2013 and January 2014. The emails revealed that CBI Scotland Chief Ian McMillan was included in the exchanges which were sent to the man who would eventually co-sign the registration form on behalf of the CBI, Richard Maughan. The emergence of MacMillan‟s name brought the number of CBI officials involved in the registration process to three. When a fourth figure emerged, it all but destroyed John Cridland's claim that only one junior official had been involved in the registration process. Martha Spearpoint was described as the Directorate Administrator, Campaigns at CBI. She also occasionally fielded requests across the team. Spearpoint was includ-ed in an email on April 16th from the Electoral Commission which confirmed the CBI's application to register as an official campaigner on behalf of Better Together, had been accepted. The emails revealed that a meeting was set up between the Commission and CBI Scotland director Iain McMillan and assistant director David Lonsdale af-ter the Commission identified the CBI as a potential No campaigner. In the emails, Eddie Follan, senior referendum officer at the Electoral Commission, contacted assistant director David Lonsdale directly to say the Commission had identified the CBI as a potential independence referendum campaigner and extended the offer of a meeting to discuss it further.

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What the communications appeared to show was that the Electoral Commis-sion had been alerted to the CBI‟s behaviour in relation to the referendum. The Commission had advised the CBI to adapt its plans or risk being moni-tored as an official campaign participant. This was the thrust of the April 23rd communication from Jenny Watson. In the event, the CBI‟s application was nullified on May 1st by the Electoral Commission. Officially at least, the organisation was never formally designat-ed a pro-Union campaign group. But what of the BBC‟s membership, did the corporation ever resign? On May 15th the BBC issued the following statement:

“As the CBI is no longer registered with the Electoral Commission as part of the Scottish Referendum Act, the BBC believes that it is no long-er necessary to suspend its membership.”

As of April 2015 the BBC remains a member of an organisation that opposed the creation of the Scottish Parliament, opposes full fiscal autonomy and is against Scottish independence. The CBI membership fee is paid from the commercial arm of the BBC. I‟ll end this chapter with another example of BBC Scotland‟s peculiar habit of downplaying stories that were helpful to the Yes campaign. The episode high-lights „double standards‟ in more ways than one. As we entered 2014 the No campaign‟s economic strategy was already well es-tablished. In summary, it was to persuade Scots that independence would damage the Scottish economy. A steady stream of scare stories and veiled threats had ensured that the fear-factor remained firmly to the fore as we headed towards September 18th. The main conduit for these stories, as you will already appreciate having got this far in the book, was the BBC. If a big institution issued a statement then the BBC was on hand to make sure it was interpreted in the appropriate man-ner and promoted through news bulletins. Without the BBC, there was no Better Together campaign. The anti-independence movement didn‟t need activists and didn‟t need the new online media to get its message out. It didn‟t have to worry much about an alternative narrative either. If an institution issued a statement that was helpful to independence, the BBC marginalised it or ignored it completely. In February 2014 this one-sided approach to news editing was demonstrated perfectly when two institutions issued statements on the same day. Those in-stitutions were pensions firm Standard Life and international ratings agency Standard & Poor‟s. On February 27th Standard Life issued a statement.

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Below is what the company said.

As a business we have a long-standing policy of strict political neutral-ity and at no time will we advise people on how they should vote, but we have a duty and a responsibility to understand the implications of independence for our customers and other stakeholders and to take whatever action may be necessary to protect their interests. In view of the uncertainty that is likely to remain around this issue, there are steps that we can and will take now based on our own analy-sis. For example, we have started work to establish additional regis-tered companies to operate outside Scotland, into which we could transfer parts of our operations if it was necessary to do so. This is a purely precautionary measure, and customers do not need to take any action. We are simply putting in place a mechanism which, in the event of constitutional change, allows us to provide continuity to customers and to continue serving them, wherever they live in the UK.

It was contingency planning and was what all well-run companies did. Which operations the company might wish to transfer in the event of a Yes vote were never explicitly made clear. The company had been based in Scotland throughout its entire 189 year history. It employed 5000 people in Scotland and operated in a highly-skilled market. Relocating and replacing such a highly skilled workforce would require huge investment. If Standard Life wanted to warn about significant job losses, it could have, but it didn‟t. The same day as Standard Life published a statement relaying its contingency plans, international ratings agency Standard & Poor‟s published a report into the impact of Scottish independence. The report contained some remarkable conclusions that were very pertinent to the independence debate. The Standard & Poor‟s report contained the following:

The Scottish economy is rich and relatively diversified, with 2014 per capita GDP estimated to be US$47,369…. …Scottish wealth levels are comparable to that of the U.K. ('AAA'), Germany ('AAA'), Ireland ('BBB+'), and New Zealand ('AA-'). Even excluding North Sea output and calculating per capita GDP only by looking at onshore income, Scotland would qualify for our highest economic assessment. Higher GDP per capita, in our view, gives a country a broader potential tax and funding base to draw from, which supports creditworthiness.

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Continued: In brief, we would expect Scotland to benefit from all the attributes of an investment-grade sovereign credit characterised by its wealthy economy (roughly the size of New Zealand‟s), high-quality human cap-ital, flexible product and labour markets, and transparent institutions, said S&P in the report. Nevertheless, the newly formed sovereign state would begin life with comparatively high levels of public debt, sensitivity to oil prices, and, depending on the nature of arrangements with the EU or UK, poten-tially limited monetary flexibility. At the same time, Scotland‟s external position in terms of liquidity and investment could be subject to volatility should banks leave. On the other hand, if this were to happen, it could bring benefits in terms of reducing the size of the Scottish economy‟s external balance sheet, normalizing the size of its financial sector, and reducing contin-gent liabilities for the state. In short, the challenge for Scotland to go it alone would be significant, but not unsurpassable.

The rating‟s agency analysis was pretty fair. There would be challenges but they wouldn‟t be unsurpassable. An independent Scotland would be sensitive to oil prices but would benefit from solid relationship with the EU and the rest of the UK. However it was the positives that were truly eye catching. The re-port confirmed Scotland was a wealthy country with a per-head GDP of $47,369. The figure was way ahead of the rest of the UK‟s equivalent of $41,006. But the most significant part of the report related to the credit rating of a newly independent Scotland. It said:

Even excluding North Sea output and calculating per capita GDP only by looking at onshore income, Scotland would qualify for our highest economic assessment. Higher GDP per capita, in our view, gives a country a broader potential tax and funding base to draw from, which supports creditworthiness.

I‟ve highlighted the key part of the paragraph to underline what Standard & Poor‟s was saying. A newly independent Scotland didn‟t need North Sea Oil in order to qualify for what the rating‟s agency was calling its highest standard economic assessment. The creditworthiness of Scotland was not dependent on North Sea Oil.

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So, which of the two „Standards‟ did BBC Scotland decide to headline? The two images below give the answer. The BBC pushed the contingency planning statement by Standard Life to the top of its news agenda. The contingency plan was deemed more newsworthy than the ratings agency report. Before I continue though, I want to draw your attention to the two BBC online articles below. There‟s something different about both headlines. The one on the right is the UK wide headline which accurately portrays the statement from Standard Life as a „contingency plan‟ because that is what it was. BBC Scotland however was claiming that the company was considering quitting Scotland. This was not true.

However the online difference was the only difference between BBC north and south. The corporation‟s broadcast media went into overdrive with another anti-independence news story. On radio the anti-Yes message was pumped out relentlessly. Afternoon TV news bulletins were equally unremitting. On that evening‟s Reporting Scotland the Standard Life statement was the biggest news story. BBC Scotland Business and Economy Editor Douglas Fraser ap-peared in a specially produced item. Here is what he told viewers:

“Standard Life has corporate clout. With big banks weakened it's be-come a standard-bearer for Scottish finance. It employs five thousand Scots from its Edinburgh offices and manages two hundred and forty four billion pounds. While neutral on the whole, its now Chief Executive David Nish warned today that he may move funds and staff out of Scotland if there's a Yes in the referendum.

The concerns here at Standard Life headquarters about Scottish inde-pendence start with the currency Scotland would use and how that's controlled. They are about financial regulations including consumer protection, and they are about the taxation system, partly for pensions and also for high-earners here, and there's the question of clear access into European markets. With these uncertainties, this company's taking precautions.”

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But what of the day‟s other big story, the Standard & Poor‟s report? Well Fra-ser mentioned the report in his item, and below is what he said:

“And the ratings agency Standard & Poor's said the challenges facing an independent Scotland would be 'significant but nit unsurpassable'.”

The sentence on Standard & Poor‟s took up all of seven seconds in an item that was five and a half minutes long. It may as well not have been mentioned at all. By comparison, the Standard Life statement was squeezed for all it was worth. Every drip of anti-Yes sentiment found its way into living rooms. The news report also included one of BBC Scotland‟s favourite ploys when it came to influencing viewers - the vox pop. A vox-pop requires nothing more than a reporter to stand somewhere asking passers-by to comment on the news item. Members of the public will of course react to whatever line they are fed. In this case, faced with questions that suggested businesses were planning to leave an independent Scotland in the event of a Yes vote, people responded accordingly. On that evening‟s Reporting Scotland one poor soul was duped into believing there would be no jobs left in an independent Scotland. Viewers heard the lady say:

“If all the jobs are going to go down south, you may not have a job to go to.”

Another woman was broadcast saying:

“Personally I think it's quite crushing to the Yes debate. The companies are only going to do what's best for them and it's best for Scotland to keep the big companies within Scotland.”

A man spoke to the reporter and said:

“It will make people maybe think more about it. If you think that's one company, how many more are out there thinking the same way but not coming out and saying?”

BBC Scotland had embellished the Standard Life statement. The statement published by the company never mentioned quitting Scotland or moving staff. Yet that was precisely the message BBC Scotland promoted. It did this whilst simultaneously suppressing Yes-friendly aspects of a very significant report from one of the world‟s most respected ratings agencies.

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Douglas Fraser did cover the Standard & Poor‟s analysis in a bit more detail on his blog a day later. For the purposes of brevity, below are the three sentences where he addressed the agency‟s view on a credit rating.

“The credit rating agency has run its rule over the prospects for Scottish independence. It didn't reach a conclusion on a credit rating, but assessed some of the factors it would consider if, or when, it does.” “It said the Scottish economy is clearly big and open and diverse enough to sustain investment grade" rating. That means from "BBB-" and up to AAA.” “It doesn't look like a triple-A rating for a while yet.”

Standard & Poor‟s didn‟t come to any conclusion, Fraser was correct on that point. But what the agency had said was considerably more positive towards independence than the BBC Scotland reporter was implying. It was also very clearly newsworthy, yet the key part of the Standard & Poor‟s analysis, reproduced again below, was never reported by anyone at BBC Scotland.

Even excluding North Sea output and calculating per capita GDP only by looking at onshore income, Scotland would qualify for our highest economic assessment. Higher GDP per capita, in our view, gives a country a broader potential tax and funding base to draw from, which supports creditworthiness.

The matter didn‟t end there though. In April 2014, management at BBC Scotland appeared before Holyrood‟s Education and Culture Committee where they faced questions relating to the BBC‟s coverage of the referendum. Towards the end of the proceedings the committee chairman, Stewart Maxwell MSP, asked about the Standard & Poor‟s report. Here is what the SNP MSP asked:

“BBC Scotland gave extensive coverage to the question around Scotland's status in terms of its credit rating, and the accusation that it would not get a triple-A credit rating. There was a number of comments at various times covering that particular story. However recently when Standard & Poor's produced a report, which you did cover and Douglas Fraser did a good job in covering it, but in that report by Standard & Poor's they said „Even excluding North Sea output and calculating per capita GDP only by looking at onshore income, Scotland would qualify for our highest economic assessment. Higher GDP per capita, in our view, gives a country a broader potential tax and funding base to draw from, which supports creditworthiness.‟

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Continued: That was probably, from my point of view certainly, one of the most interesting and important statements in that report, why was that not covered by the BBC?”

The response from the BBC Scotland representatives was first dumbstruck si-lence, followed by confused explanations. Head of BBC Scotland Ken MacQuarrie said it was an on-going news judge-ment what news was covered. In a bizarre back-to-front comment, MacQuar-rie said he couldn't confirm BBC Scotland hadn‟t covered it. The broadcaster's head of referendum coverage, John Mullin, at first tried to claim that the statement had been covered in the same day as the Standard Life story, but then appeared to concede he didn‟t know either, saying "my recollection is that we did but I'm very happy to go back and look again." The incoherent confusion from BBC Scotland management masked what Stewart Maxwell already knew. The specific statement from Standard & Poor‟s, quoted by the MSP, had been airbrushed out of BBC Scotland news. The corporation had simply ignored it. Licence payers were never told.