THOSE who are on sufficiently strong blood pressure medication to keep watching will have noticed that BBC Scotland has recently cut back its Scottish news output with Reporting Scotland on BBC1 no longer comprising a full 30 minutes of fitba, murrdurrs and attacks on the Scottish Government and the SNP.

It has been reduced to around 20 minutes before cutting back to the big boys and girls down in London. That's less time for not holding Anas Sarwar to account, and for doing its usual trick of finding someone to appear on camera to moan about the Scottish Government and undermine any potentially positive story for the SNP.

The Scottish Government could finance the building of an ark to save every species of animal in the world from a globally devastating biblical flood only for BBC Reporting Scotland to announce: "Scottish Government in racism controversy, this evening we have an exclusive interview with a Grenadines horned iguana who has accused the SNP of refusing it access to the ark claiming that it is only a subspecies."

This would be followed by an interview with Jackie Baillie blaming the flood on the SNP for not clearing out the storm drains and complaining that SNP ministers have taken their eye off the ball because construction of the ark is a distraction from getting a replacement ferry on the Oban to Craignure route.

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There would also be a press release from the Scottish Conservatives condemning the SNP for playing at international diplomacy. "Madagascan ring tailed lemurs and other primates are reserved to Westminster, the SNP must drop its obsession with independence," said Scottish Conservative party chairman Craig Hoy in a statement read out by Sally Magnusson, sitting in front of a stock photo of a chimpanzee waving a little union flag.

The unheralded and largely unnoticed change to Reporting Scotland comes after the decision of the broadcasting regulator Ofcom to allow the BBC to halve the news quota on the BBC Scotland channel from the current 250 hours in peak time per calendar year to 125 hours.

Now the BBC is set to cut back its Scottish output even further with the news that the Corporation is to axe 25 to 30 jobs in Scotland, with a similar number in Wales and up to 12 in Northern Ireland. 45 jobs will also be lost from regional BBC teams across England.

You don't need to be a mathematical genius to work out that it's the devolved nations which are bearing the brunt of the BBC's job losses, with up to 72 jobs being lost in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland but 45 across the English regions despite the fact that the combined population of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland is around 10.5 million while the population of England is over five times greater at 57.7 million.

The general secretary of the National Union of Journalists, Michelle Stanistreet, said the cuts would further "hollow out" local news provision, "Coming on the back of a painful cull across BBC Local, these latest cuts across its regions and nations will further hollow out local news provision at a time when resources are stretched to breaking point," she said.

A BBC spokesperson said: “We have been clear that the significant funding pressures we face means that every division in the BBC needs to make savings. In July we said that we expected to see an overall reduction of around 500 BBC public service roles by March 2026.”

While few supporters of Scottish independence will shed a tear over a reduction in BBC Scotland's torrential output of the Cringe and its incessant pro-UK and anti-independence propaganda, the cuts only further illustrate how poorly Scotland is served by the BBC and by the British state.

The supposedly "most powerful devolved parliament in the world" does not have control over broadcasting yet it is routine for the governments of other self-governing nations and territories elsewhere in the world to have control over broadcasting in their own areas.

Scotland has BBC Scotland, Catalonia has five channels of its own including a children's channel, a 24 hour news channel, and a sports channel. The reason Scotland does not have a similar amount of Scottish produced programming has nothing to do with cost and everything to do with the political choice of successive Westminster governments to maintain a stranglehold over broadcasting in Scotland.

The First Minister has hinted at the possibility of early Scottish elections if the Scottish Government is unable to get its budget passed when it comes to a vote in Holyrood in December. There is uncertainty whether there are sufficient votes in Holyrood to pass the budget following the collapse of the Bute House Agreement between the Scottish Greens and the SNP and the growing animosity amongst the Greens towards the SNP.

The Scottish Greens cast doubt earlier this week on whether they would support the SNP Government’s spending plans after the First Minister appeared to drop plans for universal free school meals for P6 and P7 children in his debut Programme for Government.

The Greens are also aggrieved by the Scottish Government’s decision to favour a UK-wide ban on conversion practices instead of moving forward with its own legislation, a move which looks like an attempt by the Scottish Government to avoid another politically damaging row similar to that in which the Scottish Gender Recognition Reform bill became mired.

However, the First Minister said that he remains confident that a deal can be struck to get the budget passed but said that an early election was a possibility if an agreement could not be reached.

Brexit is going terribly well, just terribly. Planned post-Brexit checks on fruit and vegetables being imported from the EU are set to be delayed again until the middle of next year, according to a leaked letter. The government has been warned that the checks could add to inflation, put the food supply at risk, and cause economic damage.

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The postponement of the checks highlights the need for the British Government to reach a deal with the EU on a trade agreement which would alleviate the need for many checks on food imports and exports.

However, such a deal would be met with howls of protest from the Tories, Reform, and the right wing press about the 'betrayal' of Brexit, so Starmer prefers to keep kicking the can down the road. Brexit, the gift that keeps on giving.

This piece is an extract from today’s REAL Scottish Politics newsletter, which is emailed out at 7pm every weekday with a round-up of the day's top stories and exclusive analysis from the Wee Ginger Dug.

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