Shortly after the terms of the Scottish independence referendum were set, in the 2012 Edinburgh Agreement, a few of my colleagues and I were interviewed in Holyrood for a Northern Irish current affairs programme. Because of the peculiarities of their region’s politics, the show had decided to have each Scottish politician interviewed by both a unionist and a nationalist, simultaneously. As a former broadcaster, it struck me as a particularly clunky way to make television, but I suppose the programme’s flow was less of a concern than demonstrating balance on a hot topic with deep resonances in the country where it would be shown.