Wee Ginger Dug: Wall-to-wall Prince Philip coverage highlighted a deep UK divide

Absolutely no-one, not even the most die-hard republican, is saying his passing should not have been given the most prominent position in the news schedules. However even those among us who still harbour some sympathies for the Windsor family were sickened by the orchestrated orgy of industrial-strength sycophancy which characterised the broadcast media’s response to the news.

The BBC seemingly decided this was an event which was to be harnessed in an attempt to pull an increasingly disparate and divided UK together. If that was indeed the case, it miscalculated badly.

It was not enough for the UK’s national broadcaster to suspend normal programming on their flagship BBC One channel and replace it with a hagiographic look at the life of Prince Philip in which he was credited with just about every positive development over the last half-century or more, only barely stopping short of claiming that he could cure scrofula with a touch of his hand. The same nauseating sycophancy was also broadcast simultaneously on BBC Two, BBC Scotland, BBC News, and BBC Alba. It was a similar story on BBC radio. Even young children were not to be spared from the mournathon. On the BBC’s children’s channel, viewers were treated to a banner coursing along the bottom of the screen urging them to turn a different BBC channel for “important news”.

ITV, Channel 4, Channel 5, and Sky News likewise suspended all normal programming in order to inform us on the hour, every hour that Prince Philip was still dead, with the time in between filled with a nauseating saccharine retrospective during which we were repeatedly told, on every single channel and without any apparent awareness of irony, that Prince Philip “wouldn’t have wanted any fuss”.

Even the QVC shopping channel suspended normal programming “as a sign of respect,” because wanting to buy overpriced kitchen equipment or faux-diamante costume jewellery would have been a insult to the memory of a man with an army of household servants and a wife who makes public appearances dripping in precious metals and gemstones.

READ MORE: BBC removes Prince Philip form on website as complaints hit peak

By Friday afternoon, viewers in search of some respite from hordes of teary-eyed TV presenters exhorting them to feel sad and distraught had to flee to the far corners of the programme guide in search of re-runs of Judge Judy. Because if we’re going to have our TV screens taken over by an extremely rich elderly person who has a habit of being rude to people without the same wealth and privilege, it should at least be entertaining.

Scotland is decidedly less supportive of the monarchy than other parts of the UK. In 2011, when the broadcasters were seemingly under instructions to milk that year’s royal wedding for all it was worth, there was a distinct lack of enthusiasm in Scotland for the proceedings. Despite wall-to-wall publicity and the best efforts of the BBC, there were few if any street parties organised to celebrate the event. There was, however, a raucous party in Kelvingrove Park which attracted thousands of revellers.

The same overwhelming sense of “meh” likewise characterised the dominant Scottish response to the wedding of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle in 2018.

A poll published in 2018 found that only 41% of Scots would describe themselves as supportive of the monarchy,compared with 55% in England and Wales. Outright opposition to the monarchy was also substantially greater in Scotland.

Some 28% of Scottish respondents reported being opposed to the monarchy, with another 27% describing themselves as ambivalent. A total of 55% of Scots either opposed the monarchy or had no great positive sympathies towards it. In England and Wales, only 14% claimed to oppose the monarchy.

This poll was conducted long before the allegations about Prince Andrew’s behaviour surfaced, before the very public falling out of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle with the rest of the family, and before the revelations about the use of the royal prerogative in order to further the financial interests of the Windsor family.

Although no similar poll has been carried out in recent months, it’s safe to assume that these developments will not have helped to endear the monarchy to the Scottish public.

For the average Scottish viewer who has minimal interest in the royal family, if not outright opposition and a desire for a republic, it’s likely the BBC’s arrogant audacity in attempting to dictate to us how we must feel about the death of a man who many in Scotland, rightly or wrongly, believed to be an unsympathetic character will have backfired.

Far from uniting the entire UK, the grossly over-the-top TV coverage will only have confirmed the increasing alienation felt by many in Scotland and increased their sense that the BBC imposes upon Scotland the preoccupations and interests of a very foreign place.

​READ MORE: BBC and ITV viewing figures plummet during blanket Prince Philip coverage

By allowing no space whatsoever for that large segment of the population which has either no interest in the royal family or which is opposed to the monarchy as an institution, the perception created by the BBC was that of a hectoring bully determined to browbeat the public into feeling the “approved” set of emotions.

People resent being told how they must feel. Of course all deaths are sad and the loss will be keenly felt by those who loved the deceased, however the message here was that if you were not prepared to join in the orchestrated performative grief and mourning about the death of a man whose career – let’s be frank here – was simply not that important or interesting to far more people than the BBC is willing to admit, then there could be a place for you in this so-called United Kingdom.

The excessive coverage will not have brought the entire UK together. All that the broadcast media’s over-the-top response to the death of Prince Philip will have done is to highlight just how divided the UK has become, and that Scotland in particular is already halfway out of the door.