Did you see that BBC stalwart Nick Robinson has been at the receiving end of Chairman Salmond’s tongue? I feel a bit sorry for Robinson but then again the BBC pander too much to demagogues like Salmond little realising that he will devour them just as easily as anyone else who dares question his ways,
Alex Salmond has backed yes campaigners who staged an angry protest outside the BBC’s Scottish headquarters over perceived bias shown by the corporation’s political editor, Nick Robinson. The National Union of Journalists condemned attempts to intimidate journalists after Sunday’s protesters, objecting to what they regard as the BBC’s pro-union bias, said Robinson was a liar and called for him to be fired.
Salmond, Scotland’s first minister, said he did not want Robinson to be sacked and did not believe he was a liar. But he said the BBC had been unfair and unreasonable in the way it edited a tense exchange between Salmond and Robinson at a press conference on Thursday. Robinson was accused by the first minister of “heckling” after he pressed Salmond to answer further questions about the threat of Scotland-based banks to move their registered offices to London.”
In Alex Salmond’s brave new world, anyone asking any questions he deems unacceptable will be harassed and bullied and intimidated so on this occasion, I stand WITH the BBC. Forgive me!
Nothing to forgive David as your stance isn’t to protect the BBC but to defend the right of the media to ask awkward questions of politicians as this is what Slamond and his tartan barmy is actually attacking !
Alex Salmond has backed yes campaigners who staged an angry protest.
Aye, right, it was nothing to do with the SNP, was it? Just an ad-hoc group of dissatisfied punters. A huge banner like that doesn’t just appear overnight without advance planning. The SNP will have been waiting to seize on something like this.
As I said on the old Open Thread, I reckon this is a stage-managed row which will be used as an excuse to claim foul and keep the whole thing running if the vote is No on Thursday.
‘a stage-managed row’
Certainly the reaction was well resourced and swift.
But it couldn’t have gained the head of steam without the foundations for a heat of outrage to build up.
Was this claim Mr. Salmond never replied when he did (albeit in his usual manner) made, and/or fair? The former question is pretty subjective, even if what happens thereafter gets in to weasel territory.
If so, the excuse was handed on a plate. And again the BBC is making the news rather than reporting upon it.
Probably; if the Beeb has been biased, it has been for the separatists. The Beeb, after all, always uses the word “independence”, which is S.N.P. jargon chosen for what its antonyms imply. The real choice is between Unionism and separatism, but Peter Mandleson will be found in bed with a busty blonde before they start using direct, honest speech like that.
Salmond clearly wants to be the Chavez of the north. He was another demagogue who took over an oil rich nation and ran it into the ground. People think having oil makes a country rich, but typically it just lets the ruling junta indulge their power trip without having to worry about what the people think. If the Scots really want to be like Venezuelans and have to queue for hours for a roll of toilet paper, the power is in their hands.
Q. What’s the difference between Scotland and Venezuela?
A. About five years
“If the Scots really want to be like Venezuelans and have to queue for hours for a roll of toilet paper”
Tsk, this is the MOST ridiculous statement I have ever seen on here…
The Scots don’t use toilet paper…that costs beer money, a clump of moss will suffice.
If only all those both sides of the border sick of Aunty’s ClimateGate propaganda had the wherewithal to emulate the vociferous Scots.
Come on the BBC has been pushing every thing it can …for the NO camp never anything posative about indepencence ….wish the North could vote with you ….it would be a big F….O.. to Westminster & the BBC
I happened to watch this exchange on Guido before the fuss. I saw a relaxed and confident Salmond facing an unnecessarily offensive Robinson (“why should a Scottish voter believe you…?”) and answering at length Robinson’s rather crass question. The edited version which claimed that he hadn’t answered the question was a complete distortion. The complaint I have seen was dismissed out of hand (gosh really?) by the BBC, who continued to claim that he hadn’t answered the unanswerable question. (Suggested answer – I am an elected representative to public office – you are a lackey for a corrupt, bigoted and dishonest news pedlar.)
I’m no fan of Alex Salmond, but in this case Nick Robinson was in the wrong. You can find video of the exchange online, and what basically happened was that Nick gave the usual questions about RBS moving to England, big business leaders supporting the No campaign and so on.
Salmond replied to him with a very extensive answer, including pointing out that corporation tax is calculated based on economic activity, so moving a registered office would have little or no impact on that; and that the business leaders who have been held up as warning against the ‘Yes’ campaign are the same ones who did so months ago, so this wasn’t really news as such.
Robinson then tried to repeat his point about RBS, leading me to believe that he may not even understand how business works and the explanation that Salmond gave (which, as far as I know, is reasonably accurate).
I suspect that Robinson is trying to claim that Salmond didn’t answer his questions based on a follow up question during his ‘heckling phase’ rather than questions he initially posed, which were indeed fully answered.
The other thing that struck me about the exchange is that Salmond does have a decent grasp of the details, something that wasn’t really so apparent during the risible ‘debates’ he had with Darling.
Robinson’s grasp of business is pretty poor and is underpassed (if that is the opposite of surpassed) only by that of the BBC’s Business Editor Robert Peston. On this occasion it has to be said that Salmond is correct – well almost. The taxable profits of a bank will be booked in the branch or subsidiary in which the business (i.e. assets) are booked, and we can assume that that means business with English customers of Scottish banks is booked in the English branches, so that after independence the location of the head office would make no difference. However, that is not the whole story because on the one hand the relocation of the head office would likely shift some costs from Scotland to England, leaving greater taxable profits in Scotland, and there may be taxable profits arising from overseas subsidiaries or branches which are taxable in the UK/Scotland as the case may be (subject to a credit for foreign taxes paid on that income but where the amount of the creditable taxes is lower than the UK/Scottish tax due) in which case some tax will move from Scotland to England.
“on the one hand the relocation of the head office would likely shift some costs from Scotland to England, leaving greater taxable profits in Scotland”
Well that is a nice piece of Salmondomics! Head Office costs are an overhead of the business, it doesn’t matter where the head office is located. If the Bank of Lancashire had its head office in Manchester its customers in Liverpool wouldn’t avoid its costs!
Costa-a-lot-for-coffee managed to load the ‘head office’ costs of its logo onto all its subsidiaries, effectively making them loss-making businesses. London management charges placed onto Scottish branches could ensure they too are all zero-profit for Scottish taxation purposes. Indeed if the banks were operating in pounds sterling the ‘cash’ would all be in the London money markets where profit/losses would be made. The Scottish branches would be ‘customer-facing’, all cost, no profit bricks on the ground. The only tax revenue that would accrue to the Scottish treasury would be the tax on the miserable interest paid to the customers resident in Scotland.
Banks have been selling snake oil for longer than Salmond and their employees don’t get paid £1M bonuses for nothing.
Disagree with you on this one, David. I’m a “no” supporter myself, but surely it is obvious that the BBC, as the establishment, are biased on this question.
More interesting is Salmond’s comment that the BBC don’t even realise they are biased, which is what many of us on the opposite side of the political fence from the lefties have been shouting for years.
It just so happens that on this occasion the tables are turned. It doesn’t help when you support the BBC in this particular biased coverage just because you happen to agree with their stance on it.
It pains me to say it, but in this instance you are acting just like the left does when right-minded thinkers make the same complaints.
Surely the real reason for moving to England is the currency risk.?
No pound and no euro and what have you got ? Nothing that makes sense and international banks and corporations don’t like it.
Money makes the world go round and this whole independence debate has been unreal as money has not been at the centre of it. It was as I recall the initial driving force behind the American break up with Britain in the 1770s.
The ‘real reason’ the banks have to move to England is not ‘currency risk’ per se, but the various protections that banks enjoy from the state including deposit insurance and a lender-of-last-resort in the form of the central bank.
Scotland couldn’t even cover deposit insurance for all customers of RBS, questions around the central bank notwithstanding.
The rUK might try to cover deposits for rUK citizens, but that would also be problematic – the likelihood that RBS experienced a bank run would be dependent on the actions of the Scottish state (if RBS didn’t move to England), creating a huge risk for the rUK government.
This is before we even get into more technical questions around capitalisation, the ability to expand money supply via lending and so on which would all be more difficult in a situation where such a major bank from a rUK retail perspective was governed by a foreign country.
‘I stand WITH the BBC. Forgive me!’
So nothing to do with BBC bias then. As always its just your own bias, the BBC coverage is extraneous.
And joining the sparse fare of late from the sniper section, your comment all about an obsession with a person not the topic.
Way to go.
Any views on, say, the BBC publishing in ‘reports’ names and addresses of arrestees they appear to feel strongly need identifying as absolutely as possible, when at other times hard pressed to admit to even the species involved (granted in some cases of late this can be a matter of doubt)? And getting exercised by costs of police cover to the penny, again when at other times less of a concern in supporting right to protest.
The BBC has always had a record of partiality towards particular political causes, and it has been very evident throughout the Independence Campaign that Auntie desperately wished to cosy up to the S.N.P.. However, Chairman Salmond has always demaned nothing less than total loyalty to the cause, and it was inevitable that a rupture would occur in this relationship. When will the electorate of England and Wales wake upto the fact that the BBC is no longer impartial vis-a-vis the world of politica, and the organisation can no longer to be regarded as a national treasure?