Yet another Union Dividend

         Scotland

As if woeful Wednesday wasn't a bad enough day for Scotland, word has just filtered through that the Sunday Times Scotland has been more or less closed down. A skeletal staff comprising of a reporter, a sports reporter, a columnist and a parliamentary correspondent will remain. Roughly equivalent to the same amount of staff as the Dumfropolis Literary Gleaner and Educator. 

I suppose the writing was on the wall when News International shifted their commercial advertising sales to join production in Manchester... Honestly, Mancunian's selling advertising to Scottish businesses in a Scottish paper...that'll be a skoosh.

This is particularly bad news for those who see the need for a balanced impartial media in Scotland. The Sunday Times Scotland (STS) was the paper which did such great work on the Steven Purcell coke, gangsters,alleged corruption, and Labour placemen in arms length organisations saga, whilst other 'Scottish' dailies and Sundays thirled to the Labour establishment and afraid to question them, stuck their thumbs in their mouths and made wee wee. 

STS was blessed with some exceptional talent, Allan Brown and Gillian Bowditch among them. However, the one person that will be missed by legions of loyal readers is the estimable Joan McAlpine, Scotland's most learned, common sense columnist. The flip side, naturally, is that they have the utterly hat stand Jenny Hjul and her lovely lopsided smile...

Reporters like Mark MacAskill and Jason Allardyce, editorial staff Carlos Alba and Camillo Fracassini, did such a great job that at times you almost forgot the paper was the property of the great Satan, Rupert Murdoch.

With an average sale of 68,000 they outsold all their Scottish rivals, consistently selling more than 10,000 copies per Sunday than nearest rival the Liberal Democrat supporting Scotland on Sunday.

One thing is obvious now that if an organisation as august and well financed as the Sunday Times can't survive in this internet age, how long before the Sunday Herald and Scotland on Sunday cease to exist, particularly with their rabid anti-Scotland editorials?

Now that David Cameron is Prime Minister and he tells us he will take a softer approach to Scotland, now is the time for him to have a look at devolving broadcasting to Holyrood, so that Scotland can have that basic component of a civilised country, an independent media.