I don’t recall demonstrations against the Scottish
Government and Nicola Sturgeon. It had
begun to appear that Teflon Nicola was completely non-stick both in terms of her
policies and in terms of whatever misdeeds the SNP got up to. The Scottish
voters simply did not care. She could make a mess of education. She could make
a mess of hospitals. But it was always someone else’s fault. Boris Johnson was
blamed for things the Scottish Government controlled and Scots believed
Sturgeon. But for the first time this has changed.
Scottish bar and restaurant workers dumped ice in the streets in complaints about lockdown 2. Graffiti has been seen saying that Sturgeon lied. Of course, these same bar workers may forget that they dumped ice when they next have a chance to dump the SNP, but this would make their protest rather pointless. You don’t really change anything by throwing ice into the street. It melts and then it dries, but you do change things by voting for someone else.
Sturgeon decided to diverge from UK Covid policy when the
Conservative Government eased lockdown earlier than she wanted. From then on,
she took responsibility for Covid in Scotland. Health is devolved. It doesn’t
matter what England does. That’s their business. Whatever happens for good or
ill in Scotland is to the credit or blame of Sturgeon and the SNP.
Sturgeon attempted to eliminate Covid in Scotland.
That was what all the talk of borders was about in the summer. But she failed.
All those daily briefings where she boasted about how wonderful Scotland was
doing look like so much hot air when we get locked down again.
While Sturgeon was willing to contemplate borders
within Britain, she is not willing to contemplate borders within Scotland. There
is no reason at all why most of northern Scotland has extra restrictions.
There are 18.8 cases per 100,000 in Aberdeenshire and
still less in Moray, Highland, Shetland and Orkney.
Sturgeon suggested that the Northern Isles could be
exempt from the new rules, but only if travel between them and the mainland was
forbidden. But this is a harsh punishment for places with almost no cases of Covid.
There is no reason at all why people from Shetland cannot go to Moray, Highland
or Aberdeenshire. There is no reason why our pubs and restaurants should be
shut because of high numbers of cases in the Central Belt.
But is it anyway because of restaurants and pubs being
open that we have large numbers of cases in parts of Scotland? No, the reason
cases are increasing is because Nicola Sturgeon decided to allow students to
return to campuses.
There is no reason whatsoever why students are physically
at university. Their teaching is almost exclusively online. Those who are
interested can learn just as well this way, but universities had to fill their
halls of residences with rent payers and probably feared that students wouldn’t
pay their fees if they were forced to stay at home. The result was that
thousands of students from all over Britain and other parts of the world
travelled to the university towns in Scotland. They spread Covid amongst
themselves and the wider community and ended up trapped in their halls of residence
doing courses online that they could have done just as well at home.
Universities may well have faced a business crisis if
students had been prevented from going to campus. But why is one business (a
university) more important than another (a bar or restaurant)? Why should bar workers
be made unemployed so that students can sit in their rooms in isolation eating
jam sandwiches and pot noodles?
The decision to import young people without friends desperate
to socialise with each other was Sturgeon’s alone. Margaret Ferrier is not the
Covid super-spreader. It is Nicola Sturgeon.
But is there any need to close restaurants and bars
anyway?
There are 1574 cases per 100,000 in Glasgow, which is very
high indeed, but on 11th October there were zero new deaths in Scotland.
We know that there is a time lag. But the graph of the
increase in cases has been rising for some time now. The graph of deaths is not
rising.
Young people are spreading Covid amongst themselves, but
very few if any will have a serious illness. So long as those young people keep
away from the elderly the fact that they have caught Covid will prove beneficial.
The more people who have had Covid without spreading it to the vulnerable the
better. Not only will it make Covid less dangerous, it will take us that bit
closer to the point where Covid is no longer dangerous to anyone.
Sturgeon’s elimination strategy failed because she
imported thousands of students into Scotland without testing them, but it was
anyway misconceived. The task is to prevent those at serious risk from catching
Covid. This is what will save lives, nothing else.
Nicola Sturgeon has made one almighty mess of both
health and education in Scotland. Shutting bars and restaurants will save very
few lives, because those who are at serious risk of dying from Covid will
choose not to go to bars and restaurants.
Those who are dumping ice on the streets are right to protest
because their jobs are being sacrificed partly because Sturgeon thinks
university finances are more important, but secondly because the whole strategy
of closing down places where young people congregate is folly.
If you put 10,000 students on an island and let them
go to as many clubs, restaurants and bars as they please, it is unlikely that even
one of them will die from Covid. It is a disease of old age. A strategy that
does not treat it as such is hardly a strategy at all. Treating everyone as
being at equal risk fails because young people know that the risk to them is
tiny. This is why they will mix socially no matter how much Sturgeon tries to
lock them down.
Sturgeon is facing a firefight on multiple fronts.
Just as she puts one fire out another emerges. Her own party is turning against
her, because they know that she tried to nobble Alex Salmond and they know she
has something to hide.
It would make more sense if Peter Murrell had written
TBH the more fronts she
is having to firefight on the better for all complainers. So CPS action would
be a good thing.
