BBC Radio Scotland has come under fire from the SNP for cutting off the First Minister’s daily coronavirus briefing to hear Boris Johnson announcing new lockdown rules for England instead.
Lunchtime Live played Nicola Sturgeon’s briefing in which she said there was a rise of six cases of coronavirus since Monday, which she said shows “the very significant progress we’ve made in suppressing it”.
“It’s also important to ... remember the situation we were in a few months ago ... there was a very real prospect that our health service would be overwhelmed, even with the extra capacity that we had created.”
The FM was then cut off, with a presenter interrupting to say: “We’ll come back to that news conference, that was the Scottish Government but now Boris Johnson has just got to his feet at Westminster.”
BBC Scotland cut away from Nicola Sturgeon's live coronavirus briefing to cover Boris Johnson's announcement of changes for England. The Radio Scotland presenter then read out the changes as though they applied to Scotland.
— MSM_Monitor (@msm_monitor) June 23, 2020
Spreading #ColonialConfusionhttps://t.co/6EKpaIJsrJ
The show then played Johnson telling the House of Commons about the new coronavirus rules in England where he said “the significant fall in the prevalence of the virus” meant that “our long national hibernation is beginning to come to an end” and that restaurants and bars will re-open from July 4.
Cinemas, museums, galleries, theme parks, arcades and libraries will also all now be allowed to re-open in England Scottish bars, restaurants and non-essential shops have been given the provisional date of July 15 for re-opening if virus cases remain low. Tourism Secretary Fergus Ewing revealed the plan earlier this month, with the re-opening kicking in after a legal review of lockdown restrictions planned for July 9.
Johnson also said the UK’s Covid alert level has been downgraded from four to three. He added that Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland “hold responsibility for their own lockdown restrictions and they will respond to the united view of the chief medical officers at their own pace based on their own judgement but all parts of the UK are now travelling in the same direction”.
The PM said the two-metre rule has been reduce to one metre in England.
The SNP said cutting to the Prime Minister is “inexplicable” as it confuses Scottish listeners.
Keith Brown, the SNP’s depute leader, said: “Why BBC Scotland felt it was wise to interrupt their coverage of the First Minister’s media briefing and instead tackle Boris Johnson talking about measures relevant only to England is quite inexplicable.
“And before returning to Scotland, the BBC Radio Scotland Lunchtime Live’s studio host recapped the PM’s new measures – while failing to mention that these are effective England only.”
A BBC Scotland spokesperson said: “In the coronavirus story, there were fast-moving developments that Lunchtime Live brought to the BBC Radio Scotland audience.
“We broadcast two sections of the Scottish Government’s daily briefing, and also heard from the Prime Minister in the Commons. The First Minister reacted to the news that there were changes to social distancing in England.
“The story was put in context by a BBC Scotland political correspondent based in Westminster and by our political editor Brian Taylor. “We believe this complete coverage on Lunchtime Live gave our audience the best news and analysis of this important story”.
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