BBC Trust review

If the BBC Trust is serious about reviewing coverage of the devolved nations on the BBC's UK news network then I welcome it.

The dominance of a metropolitan agenda is the problem rather than an English bias. But it means that the BBC fails to reflect the real diversity of the UK. Too often coverage of Wales is about 'quirky' issues rather than a real engagement of life in post-devolution Britain.

ITN is worse. And the London newspapers are as bad, of course. All of them, without exception.

But the BBC should be the benchmark. It has invested internally in training its journalists at regular intervals about the differences in the UK - eg in health and education - but the reality that appears on screen in the context of breaking news takes England as the norm - eg primary care trusts not local health boards - and too often fails to clarify when Whitehall initiatives apply only to England.

I have written before about this of course - not least on Blogging the Beeb, the blog I set up when I was starting the research for the book on the BBC and Britishness I am still writing....slowly.