With just hours to go until the pivotal Scottish referendum on independence, we take a little look at Doctor Who‘s place in the future of Scotland and what a few Doctor Who personalities have to say on the matter.
There has been of course much speculation over the role of the BBC in a possible future independent Scotland, with the Scottish National Party (SNP) intent on the creation of a separate Scottish Broadcasting Service by 2017.
The proposed service would utilise the resources of BBC Scotland and establish a formal relationship with the BBC Worldwide to ensure that Scots will continue to be able to watch shows including Doctor Who, involving SBS providing programming for the BBC at the level BBC Scotland currently provides in exchange for BBC Worldwide providing English/Welsh shows for Scotland.
Prof. Philip Schlesinger, a media expert at Glasgow University says:
“What is being sought is a most-favored nation trading relationship with the BBC. It is a proposal that sits on the table and we don’t know if it will be accepted were there to be negotiations about independence after 18 September 2014.”
Margaret Curran, Shadow Secretary of State for Scotland in Westminster is equally dubious:
“If you were in London you wouldn’t want your licence fee to give extra help to what is now a foreign country.”
The BBC would also be hit hard by the loss of Scottish licence fee money, reported to be a figure around £320 million, at a time the Corporation is looking to make savings of £800 million.
In terms of artists speaking out, Ross Colquhoun, a founding member of the pro-independence cultural group National Collective said:
“The opportunity to create a new state is perhaps the ultimate challenge that a society can grapple with. It is also a fundamentally creative one. It is the task of artists to inhabit the vanguard of imagining and questioning the future of a society.”
While we have no indication as to the feelings of Doctor Who Producer Steven Moffat or current Twelfth Doctor Peter Capaldi, a number of personalities have spoken out including David Tennant, John Barrowman and Jenny Colgan.
In August Tenth Doctor actor Tennant said:
“As I chose to leave Scotland many years ago now I forfeited my right to tell Scottish residents how to run the country. And anyway, there is nothing more odious than actors foisting their opinions around. I’m very happy to leave that to the politicians who are – hopefully – so much better placed and informed.”
However he may have given some indication as to his feelings in July when The Guardian reported David saying:
“Why do we want to become smaller? Surely we want to expand and look outward?”
John Barrowman meanwhile gave a firm backing to the no campaign, despite being illegible to vote. The Captain Jack actor said:
“I am Scottish. I do have an opinion and I do have a voice. This Burns night - and for the coming months - all of us who believe in unity over division should use our voice to help win the referendum. We are stronger when we stand together.”
Barrowman expanded on his theme of “unity over division,” calling to the people of the United Kingdom to stand together rather than apart:
“We can take this opportunity to embrace the things that connect us, the things that unite us in our family of nations - not to be caught up in searching for grievances or ways to divide people who should stand together and who have stood shoulder to shoulder for hundreds of years.”
Writer Jenny Colgan agreed, stating she wanted fewer walls and barriers and to be British, having some strong words for the yes campaign:
“I have, in general, never encountered anything but politeness and friendliness, from Gallifrey Base to Second Life (I assume. I have not been recently. It’s probably an apocalyptic cannibal survivalist wasteland out there these days) – until I outed myself as a no. Then the MacTrolls showed up. Jings, I wouldn’t let those bawheids look after a hamster, never mind a newborn state. But I have found it very difficult being on the unpopular end of the stick. Suddenly, I lost one of my most basic guiding principles towards an unruffled life, which is: if you ever find yourself on the same side as George Galloway, you are on the wrong side. If you find yourself on the same side as George Galloway, Nigel Farage and the Wee Frees, you are so on the wrong side you’ve gone right over the top and around the back again.”
Jenny was particularly alarmed to be on the same side as The Daily Mail (who wouldn’t be!):
“I’m on the same side as the Daily Mail too! Which appears to be taking a short break from convincing us the UK has gone totally down the tubes to press home a slightly perplexing message of: hey, please don’t break up this wonderful hideous slutty drunken immoral country where women, gays and foreigners don’t know their place! Actually I would have thought that having a new set of slightly more foreign foreigners living next door to despise would have been right up the Mail’s street. And I don’t want to be that. I don’t want to be a foreigner in my own land. A land in which we’ve participated and worked and moved around; mined, dug, engineered, painted, invented, cared for and bloody well run for 300 years. It is this country – this entire country – that made me. And it isn’t all Burns, although he runs through my veins too. It’s my country of Viz. Kate Bush. Doctor Who. The Shipping Forecast. Rik Mayall. The Albannach. The Beatles. Stephen Hawking. 01 811 8055. Tablet. Danny Boyle. Hogwarts. Malory Towers. The Night Mail. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. Cecil Sharp House. The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy. Tom Stoppard. Wallace and Gromit. Kings Cross- Peterborough- Doncaster- York- Darlington-Durham- Newcastle- Berwick- upon- Tweed- Haymarket terminating at Edinburgh Waverley. It’s my birthright of James Bond. Fish and Chips. Tutti Frutti. Private Eye. Tizer. The Pet Shop Boys. Spit the dog. The Office. The Ladybird Cinderella. Philip Larkin. Flower of Scotland. Windrush. Christopher Hitchens. The Traverse. The Radio 1 roadshow. Mary Poppins. The Tempest. Narnia.”
And she said:
“I am Scottish, I am British. I’m European too.”
Seventh Doctor actor Sylvester McCoy meanwhile has been actively campaigning for the yes vote as has The Curse of Fenric‘s Tomek Borkowy and author A.L Kennedy
Polish born Tomek said:
“We Poles are a freedom loving nation, only 25 years ago we reclaimed our full independence. We understand the need of a nation for self-determination and most of us will support it. ‘Polish For Yes’ and I will vote YES because I strongly believe that Scotland is run by politicians with a social conscience and this is the best deal for the people. Similarly, in Scotland, the connections between the governing and governed are much closer and therefore much more on a human level than elsewhere in the UK. Scotland has more economic potential than most European countries which regained their independence in the last quarter of a century. The scaring, ill informed or simply false arguments of the NO campaign about anything and everything make me more determined to vote YES.”
Kennedy meanwhile suggested that a vote for the yes campaign, is a progressive vote:
“Very simply, yes is the progressive vote. It continues the vast expression of disillusion that produced a landslide protest vote for Scotland’s only non-Westminster party. Since then, a novel political situation has seen voters go feral – abandoning party rhetoric, holding meetings, researching, expecting a democratic vote to effect genuine change. For yes, the referendum continues a process of holding Scotland’s averagely shoddy politicians to account and hopes to build new models of financial practice and social cohesion.”
Doctor Who Worldwide wishes both camps the best on this potentially landmark and historic moment in both British and Scottish history.
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