The demand for the BBC to do more in Scotland grows louder by the day and Comedy Unit sketch writers need look no further for new material than Tuesday’s appearance at the Scottish Parliament’s education and culture committee by two of the BBC’s biggest wigs and their man in Scotland.

Maybe it’s too cliched in the post-Rab C Nesbitt world but this was for real. Cumbernauld v Covent Garden; a sometimes snarling SNP contingent determined to make sure the London types were well out of their metropolitan comfort zone and by so doing uncover a dastardly London plot to keep Scottish broadcasting in its place.

If it promised to be box office, Director General Tony Hall was determined to play down the drama and, for the audience in the room, he had to be at his disarmingly suave best to make sure the sustained pressure under which he and his colleagues were put did not spill out into open hostility.

And there was no shortage of hostility, in particular from the combative Edinburgh Pentlands MSP Gordon MacDonald, his gruff diction explained away as the aftermath of a cold. But there was no disguising the contempt with which he spat out the names of network programmes made in Scotland which he clearly felt were unworthy of a nation that produced John Logie Baird and Lord Reith. Antiques Road Trip had particularly venomous treatment.

The Herald:

As befitting a management accountant who spent most of his professional life under the bonnet of Lothian Buses, Mr MacDonald relished getting down and dirty amongst the financial details with the BBC’s managing director of finance and operations, chartered accountant Anne Bulford whose career has spanned Carlton, TV, the Royal Opera House and Channel 4.

There was even a disagreement about a page number but, for each example of suspected larceny Mr MacDonald said he had unearthed in BBC Scotland’s budget (a total shortfall of £87 million, he calculated), Ms Bulford had an answer. But if her actual words were “I’m more than happy to explain” her narrowed eyes and thin smile suggested “Why do I have to explain myself to this oik?”.

You didn’t need to be a body language expert to read BBC Scotland director Kenny MacQuarrie’s mind. His hangdog expression didn’t belie his emotions but he repeatedly thumped the desk in irritation when trying to convince steely committee convener Stewart Maxwell there was no secret BBC Scotland plan for new channels that had been pulped by the London machine. “There was no formal proposal, we put forward a range of options,” banged Mr MacQuarrie. “I’m sticking with plan,” retorted Mr Maxwell.

If Mr MacQuarrie and Ms Bulford bristled at times, there was no sign of hackles rising from Lord Hall, but so it went on, two hours of it. The Nationalist MSPs earnestly tried to expose a hidden BBC agenda and the BBC team equally earnestly fended them off.

They did so successfully, with plausible explanations for apparent anomalies but, for those of a suspicious nature, the problem was the allegations were plausible too. Ms Bulford was not evasive but the corporation’s accounting systems are complex and, to their credit, she and Lord Hall accepted the Scottish breakdown was unclear.

Numbers are one thing but the nub is what is produced here and at least Hall confirmed news services needed to keep pace with political change and main TV news bulletins look almost certain to be devolved.

But plans for entertainment, drama and sport are less clear. There may well be more money spent here in future but the political pressure for every penny of licence fee money raised in Scotland to be spent in Scotland, as demanded by Culture Secretary Fiona Hyslop, will not go away.

The BBC will continue to challenge the assumptions behind such arithmetic but to do so effectively management structure has to change. Lord Hall put on a bravura performance of control and openness but, to deal with the reality of the Scottish political landscape, he must deliver on his promise to devolve as much decision-making as possible to Scotland so the next time Mr MacDonald wants answers he only has to rasp at Mr MacQuarrie.

The BBC needs no lessons in dealing with political pressure but BBC Scotland should be empowered because it is the right thing to do to reflect the landscape, not the views of dominant politicians.

At present in Poland, broadcasters and editors are being sacked because the government doesn’t like what they do. After the experience of the independence referendum, the BBC and the rest of Scottish media (and no, not just the evil mainstream) should make sure politicians don’t ever harbour similar ambitions.