Over the past few months I've heard a lot of people attacking BBC Scotland, and Radio Scotland in particular.

The most eloquent criticism has come from a man I admire, the eminent historian Professor Tom Devine. The criticism often focuses on the contrast between Radio 4's Today programme and Radio Scotland's Good Morning Scotland. I am an avid listener to both programmes, and regularly switch between the two.

I agree there is a contrast; in my view, Good Morning Scotland is considerably better. I'm aware that it goes out every morning in a context of decreasing resources and a diminishing number of journalists. This makes its customary quality all the more remarkable.

Incidentally, why, at this most crucial period in Scotland's history, is the BBC cutting back on Scottish journalists? I know the glib reply is that savings have to be made. Really? The Beeb still seems able to afford vastly overpaid light entertainers who often seem to be singularly lacking in talent and to be working in a somewhat sleazy context.

The presiding genius at the BBC in its crucial formative years was the great Scotsman Lord Reith. He was a deeply serious – perhaps, I concede, excessively serious – man. Light entertainment was not one of his priorities. Things have now swung too far in the opposite direction.

As for the contrast between Today and Good Morning Scotland, I think that too often the format on the Radio 4 show is for a long – sometimes exceptionally long – question to be asked. When the interviewee is at last granted the opportunity to reply, he is immediately interrupted.

Yet I genuinely admire the skills of John Humphrys. His evisceration of his own then boss, George Entwistle last December, was a superb, if almost cruel, masterclass in forensic broadcasting. I also admire the more gentle interviewing technique of Jim Naughtie (who is an old colleague and friend). Jim's couthy and discursive style masks a sharp mind and he is deceptive: he can lull an unsuspecting interviewee into a false sense of complacency, before coming to the killer question. But far too often the Today programme transmits a sense of self-delight and self-importance, a kind of pompous conviction that it is setting the agenda for the coming day.

Sometimes it does, sometimes it doesn't. But my goodness, it is pleased with itself.

I find Good Morning Scotland both more relaxed and more acute. The likes of Gary Robertson and David Miller strike me as very competent, no-nonsense broadcasters. They have not become parodies of themselves, or "personalities". They just ask the questions, sharply and fairly. Admittedly David Miller did editorialise a little last week in his now celebrated interview with Nigel Farage, when he suggested that one of Mr Farage's comments was objectionable. I reckon that, in the context, this was wholly reasonable.

The London-based media did not appear to think so. Mr Farage is to some extent their creation, and he is flavour of the moment. His party is called Ukip. But there are parts of the UK such as Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, where it is pretty inconsequential. Anyway, one London paper's Scottish editor was especially indignant about Mr Farage's treatment. He informed his readers "you could almost hear the sniggers" as Gary Robertson told the listeners his colleague's interview with Mr Farage, which had been pre-recorded, was "one that you may not want to miss".

I think that in the interview the real Mr Farage was exposed; you could hear him for what he was, and is. Nobody I know heard any background sniggers; but then by his own admission, neither did this particular "Scottish editor".

In the regular attacks on Radio Scotland, I detect something of the old Scottish cringe. If it's Scottish, it's provincial, and must be inferior to what emanates from south of the Border. (I'm well aware that the other side of this is the bombastic, "wha's like us" tendency, which is equally unpleasant.) Meanwhile I really believe that Radio Scotland deserves more respect.