THE BBC has been accused of bias and making cheap entertainment after UKIP leader Nigel Farage and George Galloway appeared on Question Time from Edinburgh, but the Liberal Democrats and Greens were left out.
David Dimblebey hosted last night's unique edition of the show, whose audience was made up entirely of 16 and 17-year-olds who will have a vote in next year's referendum.
Members of the Radical Independence Campaign, whose members forced Mr Farage to cut short a recent visit to Edinburgh, last night waved placards in a protest outside the recording at the Corn Exchange.
Scottish Greens co-leader Patrick Harvie MSP made a formal complaint, saying the BBC is only interested in delivering "sensationalist confrontation" rather than serious debate on Scotland's future".
The LibDems described the BBC's line-up as "daft" and "puzzling" given it did not reflect political representation in Scotland.
The Electoral Reform Society in Scotland said the panel was more "pantomime than serious debate."
SNP MSP Jim Eadie has written to BBC director-general Tony Hall, seeking an explanation.
He said: "By adopting this one-sided approach, the BBC is failing its own traditions of high-quality public service broadcasting."
During the programme, SNP Westminster leader Angus Robertson protested at the panel's make-up, pointing to next week's by-election for the vacant Holyrood seat at Aberdeen Donside.
However, host David Dimbleby told him sharply that Question Time had never followed by-election timetables.
A BBC spokeswoman said it sought to provide as broad a range of political opinion as possible, while offering a UK-wide audience a varied and interesting political and current affairs debate.
The programme featured heated clashes between Mr Galloway, Mr Farage, and Mr Robertson over the nature and impact of nationalism.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article