Consternation and outraged gripped the Independence campaign as the BBC admitted funnelling at least three quarters of a million pounds (at today’s equivalent value) of public money in kickbacks to the CBI.

The revelation came buried in an online BBCNews report  where  James Cook, Scotland Correspondent, of BBC News, reported: 

‘The corporation said it had been a member “since at least 1980” and its membership was linked to investment in development and training in the creative industries.’

The BBC had previously stated it had been secretly a member of the CBI “for at least ten years“.

We ourselves contacted the BBC and asked why the had given this original statement of “at least ten years”,  when they knew it to be grossly misleading, and why they had kept from licence holders for decades, the pertinent fact that they were bankrolling a partisan political organisation in violation of their charter.

We still await an answer from the state funded broadcaster.

The BBC throughout this referendum campaign has given generous ink and airtime to CBI claims of Scotland’s inability to govern itself and the cataclysmic consequences if it dare try.

Not once during any of those reports, which many found indistinguishable from a Better Together Campaign press release, did the BBC disclose its intimate financial and institutional relationship with the politically partisan CBI.

The CBI recently registered as an activist agency in the anti-independence campaign before it hemorrhaged members who considered its partisan political activities inconsistent with its avowed role as representatives of their interests.

The BBC however, remains a member and has refused to resign, saying only that it would temporarily suspend its membership when it was legally compelled to do so from May 30 2014.

Questions have arisen challenging the legality of the BBC’s operation, with commentators suggesting that the Corporation’s behaviour evinces criminal wrongdoing.

They allege that the BBC has diverted public money for use in promoting the anti-independence cause, that this revelation is dispositive of that, and that those responsible should face prosecution.

Put succinctly:

Taxpayer £ > BBC > CBI > Better Together Campaign = election fraud & criminal conspiracy > handcuffs > jail