If a Covid vaccine becomes available later this year I
will of course take it as soon as it is available to people like me. That may
be some time. But even if I don’t get the chance to take the vaccine for some
months or even years, I will benefit from everyone else who does take it. The
fewer people who can catch Covid wherever they live in the world, the fewer
there are who can pass it on to other people.
I dislike conspiracy theories whether they are about elections,
vaccines or anything else. It is right to always question science as well as
medical or political orthodoxy, but only when this is done using evidence or
reason.
I hope Governments from around the world do all they can
to make a vaccine available as widely as possible to those countries that have
not had the money or the foresight to order and fund it. It will benefit all of
us if as many people as possible gain immunity as fast as possible. But let us
be clear Britain will gain access to this vaccine quickly because the British
Government has chosen to order in advance from every credible firm researching
a vaccine. We have bet our money on every long shot and will lose on most of
these bets. We have effectively bet on every horse in the vaccine race without
knowing if any of them will reach the finish line. It is only because we and
other like-minded Governments have done this that the funding needed to reach a
vaccine has been available.
The Scottish Government has announced that it will
receive a proportional share of the limited stocks of vaccine based on Scotland’s
population. This is of course right and proper. Scotland will receive 820,000
doses if the vaccine is available this year and 3.3 million doses next year.
How much did the Scottish Government bet? Health care
is devolved. How much of the Scottish Government’s health budget was spent on
the vaccine? Did we buy our own vaccine? In that case why did we need to make
an agreement with the British Government to get a proportional share? But did
Nicola Sturgeon mention the British Government’s foresight in pre-ordering a vaccine
that no one at the time knew would ever exist? Did Sturgeon or Jeanne Freeman express
any gratitude? No, of course not.
The SNP Government has taken every penny of UK funding
whether it was Rishi Sunak’s furlough scheme and only ever asked for more
without expressing the least gratitude that Scotland is part of a nation state
that can afford these things.
It is not the case that every country in the world can
pay its workers to stay at home. Not every country even in Europe can afford to
do this. It is not automatic. Imagine what this year would have been like if
there had been no furlough. Imagine if the markets had said, No I’m sorry but
we are not going to let you borrow any more at low rates.
A trick is being played on the Scottish public. We have
been kept going throughout this year because of British money and we will hopefully
be cured by a vaccine bought by British money, but we give all the credit to Nicola
Sturgeon because she pops up on TV every day and refuses to acknowledge where
the money comes from. This makes us not merely foolish it makes us
contemptible.
Some disappointed Scottish Remainers have been
flirting with Scottish nationalism ever since 2016. If Scotland had been given
a second referendum in 2017, we would have reached independence perhaps in
2019. This was what Nicola Sturgeon and the SNP wanted. So just after setting
up our newly independent Scotland we would have learned what independence
means. How many doses of vaccine would the EU have given us even if we had
managed to join by now? How much furlough money would the EU have paid us
without our having to pay it back? That would be zero doses and zero Euros. Do
you still prefer the EU to the UK? Why? Because it benefits you with furlough
and vaccines.
If Scotland were independent now, we would not have
been able to fund furlough from income. We run a deficit. So, we would have had
to try to borrow. But according to the SNP we would not have accepted a proportional
share of UK national debt. Do you think the markets would treat us as a good
risk? We would have just shown that we were unwilling to pay back our fair proportional
share. Perhaps we wouldn’t pay back the furlough money we wanted to borrow.
Would Scotland have been able to afford to bet huge
amounts of money on a vaccine that might never have arrived? So where would our
proportional share of the vaccine have come from? The UK? But we would have
just left. Perhaps we would have asked to come straight back because we hadn’t foreseen
Covid. Well what’s going to happen next year or the year after. Can you foresee
it? I can’t.
It’s all very well to suppose that we would manage,
but this year has shown that economics is a serious business. It is the
difference between getting paid while stuck at home and being first in the queue
to get cured.
The most contemptible thing about the SNP is not their
refusal to acknowledge that UK taxpayers and the UK’s borrowing power collectively
benefit Scotland and that we get our fair share and more. Much worse than that
is that the SNP will demand a proportional population share of the vaccine while
next year demanding a referendum on leaving the UK without intending to pay
back any of the money that was used to buy it.
It is right and proper that every British citizen is
treated equally, but why should the British Government borrow to such an extent
that it will take generations to pay back if some of those British citizens don’t
intend to take part and don’t intend that their children will make up those generations?
That is to treat our fellow citizens in Britain with contempt.
Our praise for how Nicola Sturgeon is managing Covid
when she funds nothing, and our condemnation of that wicked Brexiteer Boris
when his Government funds everything, makes Scottish voters not merely gullible
it makes us scoundrels and thieves.
