TALK about bad timing from Gary Smith, head of news at BBC Scotland (Letters, January 18).

Aside from the fact that Paul Kavanagh aka Wee Ginger Dug was criticising BBC Scotland’s website (over their lack of coverage of the Scottish Government’s report on the economic impact of Brexit) and never once mentioned their TV output, on Tuesday night 13 Scottish Tory MPs voted with their party to vote down the SNP’s amendment to the EU Withdrawal Bill that would have protected Holyrood from any future Westminster power grab – a shameful act when Ruth Davidson had led us to believe that they would back the bill. A huge political story.

Yet, staggeringly, this story did not appear on any BBC Scotland TV broadcast that I saw the following day. Zero, zilch, nada on the two morning bulletins I watched presented by Cat Shearer at 7.30 and 7.55. Shamefully nothing at all on the much longer bulletin at lunchtime and even when Nick Eardley did a report on Reporting Scotland (18 minutes in after several features on the snow!) on the EU Withdrawal Bill as a whole, he made no mention of the 13 Tories the previous night.

The agenda to me is clear – tell Joe McPublic as little as possible about the internal goings-on at Westminster and try to minimise any damage to Ruth Davidson and the Scottish Conservatives. If the punters found out the true story there might be more of a clamour for independence, and we wouldn’t want that!

Scott Harrison
Hamilton

I HAVE been reading The National since day one. I read the Wee Ginger Dug on Wednesday and then read the letter on Thursday from Gary Smith, and forgive me but I could not see what Mr Smith was complaining about.

WGD stated “but naturally, in its round-up of the Scottish press on Monday morning, BBC Scotland’s online news pages chose to highlight The Herald’s front page instead: ‘FM faces indyref2 criticism’.”

Mr Smith stated: “So while our online newspaper review reflected the various front pages, the BBC’s own coverage devoted large chunks to the Brexit report”.

Why then would WGD be required to check his facts when Mr Smith concedes that the online review was as WGD stated?

Am I missing something?

Winifred McCartney
Paisley, Renfrewshire

NOW these letters pages have the attention of the BBC’s head of news, could he please answer a question that’s been irking many?

Sarah Smith misquoted A&E figures by using the annual figure instead of a weekly one. Days later, she later apologised on Twitter but no announcement of the error was made where it originated and to the same audience – on the BBC News at Six. Any self-respecting organisation would do this automatically (as newspapers do, for example), but not the BBC. One could therefore be forgiven for thinking that the “error” was either deliberate or, if not, was welcomed by the BBC as a boost to their biased, anti-SNP stance.

I complained to the BBC and received a reply which stated that they published a correction on their website and said: “We try to avoid errors and make amends as soon as possible, if any slip through like this. We regret any occasion where our standard of accuracy is below what the audience rightly expect.”

The unnamed writer of their email missed the point. There was still no acknowledgement or explanation of why there was no apology given to the same Scottish audience to whom the “error” was delivered in the first place – on BBC News at Six! Why is this, and will Mr Smith arrange for this to be done now?

Dennis White
Blackwood

MACRON, president of France, in this year of Brexit crunch, is to “lend” the Bayeux Tapestry, which is actually a wall hanging depicting the defeat of the English king and this leading to the conquering of the English kingdom and its peoples.

How ironic that the English would welcome this “gift”, but are in denial and blithely refer to Norman French William as their Conqueror. They do not seem to see Macron’s offer is a wee slap in the face.

However, on Channel 4 News John Snow referred to William’s invasion of the UK!

Readers of The National will no doubt smile.

John Edgar
Stewarton