News that BBC presenter Mishal Husain will be joining the regular team at the Radio Four Today programme fills me with dread.

Not that I think the lovely Mishal will fail to be a wonderful addition to my early morning listening on the drive to the Daily Echo. She is a first class journalist.

No. My concerns lie in the reasons for her move. Mishal is stepping in to cover the gap created by regular presenter Jim Naughtie as he, the BBC have announced, spends more time concentrating on coverage of Scotland’s independence referendum.

Oh dear. There goes the nation.

It’s not that Mr Naughtie, as far as I know, has expressed a preference for his homeland to break free from the UK, and I am certain that a journalist of his abilities and professionalism would not in anyway act in a biased manner in the reporting of the issue anyway. But the knowledge the Beeb is throwing its considerable clout behind covering the countdown to the referendum to be held next August has me worried.

I’ve never made a secret of the fact I hate the idea of Scotland going its own way. This is my nation, all of it. I want us to remain a wonderful united kingdom. But after an initial bout of concern that the SNP would indeed get its long cherished dream of leaving the union after successes in the polls North of the Border, I had grown more easy on the issue.

So far nothing Alec Salmond and his supporters have been able to do has shifted public opinion in Scotland which remains wed by a large margin to the idea of a United Kingdom of which they are a part.

Neither lowering the voting age to 16 – certainly the most cynical of ploys for any party, to call on child soldiers – nor promises of a miracle land of milk and honey created by some mythical economy has moved the Scots from a two thirds majority against independence.

But that was before the BBC decided the wade in. For what Mr Salmond has not been able to achieve in muddying the waters with outrageous unbalanced propaganda, the Beeb is bound to secure for him.

They won’t do this deliberately, you understand. They will set out to be fair and open and balanced, in their usual way. Only, the Beeb’s idea of balance is to give equal weighting to all sides no matter how absurd or plain daft a stance might be. Look then for Jim and colleagues to riddle all arguments in support of keeping the Union with bullets primed for them by the SNP. By the end of the debate the absurd idea that Scotland can live forever off its dwindling oil revenues or discover some hidden secret economy to replace them will be a sensible alternative to staying part of the most successful economic, social and political union of peoples in history instead of the Brigadoon misty-eyed romantic nonsense it truly is.

Not that the BBC bothers about any of this. It has no stake in the UK, which is why it works so hard to undermine just about everything the nation achieves. It cares not if the UK disintegrates, just so long as the pay-offs are lavish for BBC chiefs.

They won’t manage to convince everyone, of course. But if the SNP can just manage to push up the numbers by another 15 per cent then it will be game on. They need just 51 per cent of those who vote to end 300-years of our nation.

I fear the BBC’s interference will give them that with ease.