It’s high time we really were a United Kingdom

DECIDING to make face coverings compulsory on public transport will be welcomed by many and give people assurance that it is safer to return to buses and trains. However, like so many of the measures that have been introduced during this crisis we feel we have to ask the question – why now?

After all, people have been using public transport throughout lockdown and we have all seen pictures of overcrowded trains (not helped by London mayor Sadiq Khan’s bizarre decision to slash Tube services).

Perhaps, like the quarantine rules from foreign travel, this measure should have been introduced from the start and then coronavirus may have been brought under control more quickly.

That said we have to understand these are unprecedented times and the Government under Boris Johnson has rightly developed policy as the scientific evidence has led it.

It is easy to wonder what could have been done earlier in hindsight.

What is less understandable are the different rules in different parts of the UK once again highlighted by the public transport policy. Why are there different rules in Wales and Scotland?

In the view of this newspaper, the reason that we do not have a unified approach comes down to the vanity and political games being played mainly by Nicola Sturgeon but also by the Labour Welsh First Minister Mark Drakeford.

It is the opinion of the Express that Ms Sturgeon and her Scottish Nationalist fanatics in particular want to make the case for independence. Don’t be fooled that she has safety at the heart of her policy – care homes in Scotland have double the death rate of those in England and she stands accused of covering up a major outbreak in Edinburgh in February.

It is time for a unified UK approach.