The BBC says it has high standards. Its editorial guidelines state that "impartiality lies at the heart of public service and is the core of the BBC's commitment to its audiences".

I know a bit about the responsibilities of working in the public services. When I taught 17 and 18-year-olds about how to vote for the first time, they always wanted to know my political preferences.

I would never play ball. However, one group insisted on taking a straw poll. The overwhelming majority of the class - 17 out of 22 - was sure I was a Conservative voter.

Now, I've never voted Tory and I can't think of any circumstance where I ever would. The students' response told me I was doing my job. That was to make them good historians and social scientists (and achieve good exam grades, of course.)

It wasn't to fill their heads with my views of the world. I was quite proud that, if anything, I appeared to be over-compensating for my own political biases.

You'd think the BBC could easily match that kind of impartiality. Its training arm, the BBC Academy, defines the term.

"Impartiality is not the same as objectivity or balance or neutrality, although it contains elements of all three. Nor is it the same as simply being fair - although it is unlikely you will be impartial without being fair-minded. At its simplest, it means not taking sides."

Objectivity, balance, neutrality, fair minded? The BBC during the referendum campaign? Not taking sides? You've got to be joking!

To be fair, the BBC is in a different ball park from the London-based national newspapers. The Red Tops' eye-popping, vitriolic detestation of the independence movement is only to be expected.

What was surprising - nay, shocking - was the contempt of the so-called English liberal, progressive press for the values of the independence campaigners. "Atavistic", "noxious", "chauvinist" were some of the descriptions used.

But none of these organs have a public service charter guaranteeing impartiality. The BBC does.

So why did its business and economics correspondents during the referendum campaign so often appear to be Treasury spokespersons?

Why was Alex Salmond's seven-minute response to Nick Robinson edited down in the evening news to just showing Robinson ask the question, followed by a voice-over claiming Salmond didn't answer it?

The BBC's 'impartiality' generally consisted of giving the Yes side the opportunity to respond to scare stories circulated by supporters of the union. There was no scrutiny of the credibility of these stories. The No side was never similarly put on the back foot - for example, having to respond to the risks to Scotland of remaining in the union. According to the BBC's coverage, staying in the union was a risk-free option.

Perhaps most scandalous of all was the BBC's continual reference to the unionist parties' extremely modest proposals for further devolution as 'devo-max'. Whatever these proposals were, made at a crucial point in the campaign, no impartial observer could describe them as 'devo max'.

Any BBC viewer from then on could have been forgiven for thinking that the referendum was now about independence v. 'devo max'. Where's the balance in that?

On Newsnight, the BBC's main current affairs programme, Jeremy Paxton's retirement meant we were spared a few months of his hostile condescension towards supporters of independence. But Kirsty Wark was just as bad: a smiling, sympathetic lamb with unionists, a sneering, incredulous, crocodile with the Yes side.

There were some bright spots, right enough. Like Jeane Freeman, from Women For Independence, wiping the floor with the hectoring Andrew Neil, illustrating how ill-informed he was by relying on No press releases about the NHS.

On another occasion, the same Ms Freeman feistily refused to accept presenter Emily Maitlis's allocation of time - 30 seconds for her after three minutes of Alastair Campbell.

Even the day after the referendum, the BBC was still at it. I lost count of the number of times the result was described as a 'decisive' victory for the No side. I'm not sure if basketball fans would describe a 55-45 score as 'decisive'. Its rugby equivalent of 11-9 definitely isn't.

But if 55-45 is 'decisive', why is the 53-47% victory for Yes in Glasgow described as 'narrow'? And surely 'balance' would require some reference to the growth in support for independence from 28% to 45% in little over a year? Nothing doing. Presumably the outcome was so 'decisive' as to make that trend irrelevant.

No wonder Paul Mason, Newsnight's former economics editor, claimed the BBC had been "completely biased and unbalanced in their reporting of the referendum."

Disgruntled Yes supporters can cancel newspapers and stop shopping at the likes of Asda, John Lewis, Waitrose and Mark & Spencer's.

But what can they do about television and radio news? ITV is just as bad as the BBC. And people like me wouldn't know what 'social media' was if it jumped out of our computers and tweaked our noses.

But at least now we're better informed. The B in BBC isn't for Balanced. It's not the Fair and Objective Broadcasting Corporation.

We can be sure that, when it comes to reporting Scottish politics, the BBC does exactly what it says on the tin.