No room for rhetoric

COVID vaccination is the most important task the SNP Government will ever perform. So it is incredibly depressing that ambitious targets are already slipping – or being ‘refined’, as the First Minister described it.

Euphemisms won’t wash: grand promises were made that haven’t been fulfilled on time, and ministers need to take responsibility.

At First Minister’s Questions yesterday, Nicola Sturgeon’s performance was a masterclass in blame-shifting and evasion.

Her argument that her intentions are good, and therefore that she should not be criticised for failure, was a risible gambit.

Lives are at stake – and yet we are falling behind the pace with a vaccination programme drowning in reams of red tape.

The target for getting the first dose to everyone over the age of 80 has been extended to the first week in February.

And one in four GP surgeries have still not received confirmation of when they will receive the vaccine.

Some supplies may now need to be ‘held back’ in the coming weeks for people to receive the second dose.

And we learned that 717,000 doses have been made available to Scotland – while only 309,909 people have received their first inoculation. Precious stocks of the vaccine languish in storage – apparently because the SNP Government hasn’t yet requested their delivery.

Meanwhile, lockdown drags on, confining us to our homes, shutting schools to the vast majority of pupils – and placing a stranglehold on our broken economy.

The SNP’s modus operandi is relentless spin, denial and the liberal deployment of soundbites, designed to mask its many shortcomings. But spin doctors won’t be enough to fix the damage to public confidence if this incompetent government fails to live up to its rhetoric.