Here is the news - well, some of it

The running order for the BBC's 'national and international news' at 6pm on Thursday 25 July was as follows:
Item 1 - Spanish train disaster - international story - this is the only way an international story can head up UK news, unless it involves the US president
Item 2 - the UK economy - of importance to the whole of the UK, so why is it second? Possibly because the Westminster parliament has gone on holiday and it would be hard to track down politicians willing to talk on camera
Item 3 - Danny Nightingale gun case - local interest only
Item 4 - nurses struck off for misconduct in failing NHS trust hospital - England
Item 5 - Church of England takes on Wonga - England
Item 6 - the Olympics legacy - focussed on London and south-east England
Item 7 - the pope in Brazil - international story of interest to UK Roman Catholics
Item 8 - the effect of the moon on human sleep - the usual trivial final item - small amount of scientific data

Meanwhile, Reporting Scotland leads with the sentencing of the murderers of the Starkey family: father, 8 year old daughter and 21 year old son, organised by a drug dealer and carried out by his henchman. This took place in a small seaside town in the west of Scotland, previously regarded as a douce wee place on the edge of a large rural local authority. The two murderers have long sentences in front of them - the longest sentences handed out for many years.

There are many issues here and few of them are raised in the Reporting Scotland item:

· drug dealing is a serious problem in Scotland, not just in the cities and not just in city housing schemes.

· organised crime is a problem here

· these two murderers had long records. The drug dealer was known to have commissioned hitmen to commit arson as a way of dealing with rivals and potential rivals. It would be good to know what the police knew about this man and if/how they were monitoring his activities.

· it would also be interesting to know if he benefited from crime and, if so, what steps are being taken to recover his assets.

Most of all, I'd love to know what it would take to remove the Danny Nightingale case, the misconduct of nurses and the Church of England v Wonga case from the BBC's 'national and international' news and replace them with an item as important as the Starkey case. Or do we just accept that nothing that happens in Scotland (not even the independence debate?) can make it onto the 'national and international' news. And no, I'm not picking on the BBC, only using them as an example. Believe me, ITV and C4 news are worse, much worse.