I ONCE had a lovely London supper with Sarah Smith. It was in late April 2018, after a blethery Talk Radio show with John Nicolson, which he was hosting in the year before being re-elected to Westminster. Nicolson invited me back to his perfect flat, joining Sarah and John’s partner Juliano for a bite.

The memories are blurred at the edge; the delicious wine at the time hasn’t helped my recall. But I do know this was a meeting of middle-aged Scottish peers, at least generationally and educationally (excusing Juliano). All three of us were Masters of Arts students at Glasgow University, graduating at various points in the 80s.

There were other peers not in the room, but affectionately mentioned. Along with John and Sarah, both Michael Gove and C4’s Krishnan Guru-Murthy were young BBC trainees at the same time.

Before we go any further: what does this all begin to look like? Some cabal of the new establishment, their ideological differences a mere display? Or instead, was it a delightful opportunity for those of us who had passed through the same shaping institutions to compare notes, trophies, bruises about our journeys after? My memory promotes the latter. And yes, eventually, our talk wended its way towards independence (again, I wouldn’t trust my internal transcriber, but I think I recall the mood accurately). Faced with two indy supporters (and one evidently a beloved old friend), my sense of Smith was that she had a genuine curiosity about the process towards indy.

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She didn’t express a preference either way. But she was journalistically, even nerdishly interested in the issues – for example, that I thought a “left-green” indy was something worth fighting for. So in the spring of 2018, I found Sarah Smith to be calm, disinterested and professional, in the face of the continuing constitutional stramash, as well as funny, friendly and recognisable.

Accordingly, this week’s reports of her comments to a Reuters Institute paper – revealing the brutality of some of her experiences with the public as the BBC’s Scotland editor – have troubled me on a number of levels. Firstly, there is literally no excuse for the sexism and misogyny of the attacks which Smith reports. Many male citizens who think they’re contributing to some political outcome by using this language need to seriously take themselves in hand.

I know directly and privately how much vile abuse prominent women in journalism and politics receive, across all stances and positions, specifically targeting their sex and gender. It’s been a glory to see women’s leadership come to the fore in Scottish society. But it happens to have occurred at a time when the media opportunities to express male rage and resentment have never been so easy, so ubiquitous. However, this is also maybe a necessary flushing out – and a public shaming too.

Secondly, and admittedly in light of the person I met, I decided to go back and look at the clips which are often held up as examples of Smith’s “Unionist” bias.

One seems like an outright factual mistake, quickly corrected on Twitter: reporting a figure for weekly Accident and Emergency waiting times in Scotland, which was actually an annual statistic.

The second is more about joining the dots too quickly during the Salmond testimony at his investigation. Smith misreported Alex Salmond’s thoughts about the consequences if Sturgeon had broken the ministerial code during the hearing. It’s true, Salmond didn’t explicitly say “she should resign”. However, he delivers one of the fakest demurrals I’ve even seen. I can understand her jumping the gun. And as for her two reports where Smith believes that Sturgeon is either “embracing” or “enjoying” the opportunity to set different and more stringent Covid rules than the UK Government... much consternation (which she again quickly responded to on social media with an apology).

However, her true fault may be that Smith succumbed to the standard model of TV political reporting, adopted from Kirsty Wark to Robert Peston to Andrew Neil. This assumes that all politicians, of all parties, are wily, strategic actors – agonistic beasts up for the “fight”, pursuing the “long game”.

Indeed, “embracing and enjoying” the struggle for advantage. In that sense, John Smith’s daughter might be all too familiar with that behaviour pattern.

But we should try to be candid here too. The “golden thread of competence”, as Derek Mackay once put it to me (before his disgrace), was always intended by the SNP leadership to be an attractive display to potential Yes voters. It shows them we have the skills and capacity for independence.

Do we really think that “golden thread” isn’t going to weave itself through Scotland’s distinctive handling of the Covid crisis too? As I’ve written here many times, Scotland faces some severe oncoming crises. Not just new pandemics, but tipping points in global warming (and consequent mass migrations), as well as artificial intelligence likely to wreak havoc in the jobs market. Facing all this, successful states will have to show they can guarantee their peoples’ security and stability.

Scotland’s potential – for a more coordinated, trust-based, communally-driven response to these future shocks, deploying full powers – should, repeat should, be part of our case for indy. We should pursue the point vigorously (and yes, it will include our distinctive Covid response).

Was Smith a little too honest about the thrill of the chase? Again, her crime is maybe that she was too much caught up with the political agon, than that she took (or takes) a particular position within it.

I’m sorry to see Smith go. Though going by my reading about far-right organisations in the US, systemically preparing for mass insurrection behind another Trump candidacy, I’m not sure that daily life will be all that calmer in her American post.

But haste ye back. Isn’t this one of our ambitions in the indy movement – that many talents, currently scattered across the globe, might return to major institutions? In a Scottish state, where the democratic deficit is fully eradicated, these institutions should begin to function in a more robust and steady way. A new public media system would be one of those institutions. (Indeed, as a small anticipation of that, it’s been enjoyable to see Martin Geissler step off his global beat, and get journalistically wired into Scottish affairs, via the Nine and other outlets).

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The Reuters paper defines something called a “national communication sphere”. It seems clear to me that, in the form of a post-indy Scottish public media, such a sphere would be less deformed, leaky, prone to nervous collapse. Rather grossly in the Reuters paper, the former director of the BBC, Mark Thompson, talks about reaching for his “pith helmet” when dealing with nations and regions. Yet he also states clearly that “the BBC cannot and should not be a Unionist organisation”. This contradicts the former Tory minister John Whittingdale, who wants a “single bulletin which is news for the whole UK” because “this government believes in the Union”.

Thompson goes on to say that the BBC has equal responsibilities towards “Nationalists” and “Unionists” and “cannot make itself part of the debate”. I hope this clubbable wisdom communicates itself to the current BBC director, Tim Davie – if the momentum to another referendum keeps building.

However, as we prepare for that, let’s not forget what seems to have partly driven Sarah Smith to take her new gig.

“Be the Scotland you wish to see”, was my 2014 mangling of the old Gandhi phrase. The Scotland that chases its talented daughters out the country, on a tide of angry political sexism, is surely not the Scotland we wish to see. Or be.