When Alex Salmond, the Scottish National party leader, narrowly won his party’s first ever election victory in May 2007, he established a minority nationalist government in the Scottish parliament that many believed would be too weak to survive. But his energetic ministers seized the initiative with a blizzard of such populist policies as cutting prescription charges, abolishing bridge tolls and reintroducing free school meals, which the opposition parties found very hard to oppose.

However, when Salmond set up a commission late last year to investigate the future of broadcasting in Scotland, unionists thought he had finally gone too far. There was alarm in the industry that this might be an attempt to impose political direction on the broadcasters – in particular BBC Scotland, which produces most political and current affairs broadcast journalism in the country. The BBC regards itself as one of the great unifying institutions of the increasingly disparate UK and opposition parties claimed Salmond was out to politicise the corporation and drive a wedge in the union.