For A' That, Episode the Sixth - the Meedja...

Sixth time, the charm.  The start of another week, and inevitably, another edition of the For A' That podcast. This time around, Michael and I were joined in our plush studio by freelance journalist Peter Geoghegan (whose cover story about disability you may have seen in yesterday's Sunday Herald) and Philip Challinor, a London-based curmudgeonly blogger and self-published novelist.   

What future does the media have in an independent Scotland? Might independence prove reinvigorating for the rusting Scotch presses, or like devolution, see the paradoxical shrinking in the scope and ambition of its productions? What, if anything, might Levesonian developments have to say to that? And back in a wider Britain, what are we to make of UKIP's upward political momentum? Ought we to be consecrating public holidays in a secular state to old, dead sainted men? And to flip the ordinary logic of our debates, just why might Britain want to hold onto Scotland anyway? Michael has a telling, somewhat time-worn quotation from Jack Straw on the theme, which kicks off a little debate.

As usual, you can also download the show from here, or, as preferences tend, on iTunes here.  This is the sixth in our series of weekly podcasts. If you'd like to dip into our back catalogue, and revivify past conversations, you can listen back to episodes one, two, three, four and five here.