The National:

THE BBC appears to have bowed to political pressure and decided to stop the regular daily broadcasts of the First Minister's public health announcements.

British nationalist politicians have been upset that the daily appearance of the First Minister on the TV, acting like a grown up, has shown them in a poor light. So they've decided that the response to this is not to act like grown ups themselves, but rather to double down on the childish petulance.

Both Labour and Conservatives politicians have been complaining for some time about Nicola Sturgeon's daily appearances. They've now shown that they're far more interested in playing politics of a particularly petty nature than they are in what's good for public health.

They have succeeded in getting the BBC to remove the daily broadcasts precisely when the number of daily infections is increasing and as more parts of Scotland are having to experience restrictions to prevent the spread of the virus.

The point of the BBC in Scotland after all, is to act as a Call Kaye phone-in during which British nationalist extremists are given free rein to rant, and not to show that the Scottish Government can act more competently than the British Government.

The National: Nicola Sturgeon speaking at the Scottish Government briefing Nicola Sturgeon speaking at the Scottish Government briefing

The BBC planned to replace important public health information on BBC1 with Bargain Hunt's Battle of Britain Special. This is a show in which two teams, the reds and the blues, compete with one another for personal profit to flog off broken down bits of old tat to an unsuspecting public as valuable and precious heirlooms while draping everything in Union flags and nostalgia for a long gone glorious past.

The BBC could just rename it The Positive Case for the Union Show and they've already got the format for BBC broadcasting during the next indyref campaign.

Labour peer George Foulkes, who is a public health disaster all by himself, gloated on Twitter that he was delighted that the BBC had conceded to representations made to them by himself and Jackie Baillie. After approvingly retweeting George's tweet, Jackie later deleted it, hoping that no one would notice.

BBC Scotland is also attempting to pretend that no one has noticed what the BBC are doing. Head of public policy Ian Small has stated that BBC Scotland is not after all cancelling the daily broadcasts. Oh no. What they're doing is to replace the daily broadcasts with broadcasts only when the BBC deems that what the First Minister has to say has news value. Although how the BBC can know this in advance during a live speech from the First Minister and public health officials they haven't explained.

READ MORE: BBC replaces FM's briefing with Bargain Hunt Battle of Britain special

The BBC appears to be confusing a live daily health public broadcast with an episode from Bargain Hunt, in which we all know in advance that the team which chooses to spend £150 on a broken canoe paddle is going to lose heavily. Just as we all know in advance that the BBC in Scotland always consistently acts in the interests of the British establishment and not the Scottish public which actually has to pay for it.

What makes all this even more galling is that Nicola Sturgeon has gone to great lengths not to use these daily public health broadcasts for political gain. She has carefully refrained from drawing any comparisons between her own government and the shambling incompetence of the Johnson administration. She has refused to answer questions from reporters about independence polling. She has not used the briefings to make criticisms of the mess that Matt Hancock and Boris Johnson are responsible for south of the border.

It's hard to escape the conclusion that the British nationalist parties in Scotland are terrified of Scottish competence. After all, a Scotland that realises that it's perfectly capable of dealing with the biggest global crisis since the Second World War is a Scotland which doesn't need the UK.

This action is not being taken because a BBC whose budget is under pressure needs to marshal its resources more carefully. The equipment and cameras used for the daily briefings will remain in place, as they are used by Sky News. It costs the BBC just as much to broadcast nothing at all on BBC Scotland or to show repeats on BBC1 as it does to show the daily briefings. This is a blatantly political move, and one which will backfire badly on the BBC in Scotland, which is already struggling with the loss of public trust in it.

READ MORE: BBC Scotland executive explains why Nicola Sturgeon's briefings will be cut

However the real disgrace here is that thousands of people in Scotland rely on the briefings for first hand information about the most serious public health crisis for 100 years. It's because the briefings are broadcast daily at the same time that people are able to access the information. This is particularly the case with elderly people who may not be so keen to go online. If the broadcasts are now only to be shown whenever the BBC deems it important, viewers will no longer know in advance when the briefings are to be shown. This will reduce the effect and impact of the briefings. It's hard to escape the conclusion that this is the BBC's aim.

Such a decision shows that the public service broadcaster is no longer a public service at all. It is acting politically and for political motives. BBC Scotland has decided to prioritise the narrow interests of a group of British nationalist politicians over the public health interests of Scotland and in the process it has revealed itself to be nothing more than the propaganda arm of the British state.

The BBC would prefer to pump out red white and blue themed British nostalgia porn instead of public health information which shows the Scottish Government to be behaving like responsible grown ups. You cannot claim to be a Scottish public service when your goal is to undermine Scottish public health and Scottish public confidence in Scotland's own institutions.