Caution is no excuse for dither and delay

SURE and steady and a bit slow – these are the watchwords for Scotland’s lockdown exit. It’s not a mantra that will bring much comfort to millions of families desperate for life to begin again.

By contrast, south of the Border Boris Johnson is aiming for the end of all legal limits on social contact by June 21.

There are milestones pointing the way towards the restoration of pre-Covid normality – or some approximation of it.

Everyone understands that these aren’t set in concrete, the virus is simply too unpredictable, and much will depend on the vaccination drive.

But it’s well under way, and as it powers ahead some of the more stringent strictures on our lives are becoming harder to justify.

The Prime Minister has set out a plan that comes with strings attached but does at least provide a credible escape route.

He’s right to point out that a ‘zero Covid’ society is beyond our grasp – it’s a pathogen that is likely to be with us for ever.

But vaccination provides a way of suppressing it to manageable levels: we’ve seen already how quickly it has reduced hospitalisations and deaths.

In Scotland, the aim is to work towards virtual elimination of the virus, a strategy that went badly awry in 2020.

Yesterday the First Minister made the surprising admission that she had left a ‘four nations’ meeting early for her Covid briefing. It is hard to see why the chief medical officer could not have delivered the update on virus statistics in her absence.

And most of us want to see the UK moving forward out of this quagmire together – after all, we share a common objective.

It’s not clear that we are benefiting from Miss Sturgeon’s differential lockdown – in fact, as we examine Mr Johnson’s blueprint, we may feel we are losing out.

In England, March 8 is the target date for all pupils returning to school – here, parents and pupils are in limbo.

It’s possible that from mid-March more children will go back to the classroom, but we don’t know which year groups, or exactly when it might happen.

Every day that passes without children being back behind their desks represents another blow to their hopes of future educational success.

After nearly 14 years of SNP government, botched reform means many pupils were disadvantaged by the attainment gap before Covid.

Their predicament has been exacerbated during the pandemic by the digital divide, their education and life chances blighted by the virus.

Today Miss Sturgeon will unveil her own road map out of lockdown – but it won’t contain the same level of detail as Mr Johnson’s.

Dates have been ditched in favour of a woollier prospectus that can’t possibly provide the level of clarity any of us needs to plan for the months to come.

Even under Mr Johnson’s proposals, the stay at home order will apply until at least the end of March, while retailers won’t be able to resume trading until April 12.

Indoor family gatherings and the reopening of hotels and theatres in England won’t happen until at least May 17.

Miss Sturgeon tells us ‘we are going to have to be patient here’ – but Scotland has waited for nearly a year, and our patience is wearing thin.

Where is the dynamic plan for economic revival, for the end of social distancing, and for the resumption of state schooling?

Even with the extraordinarily rapid rate of the immunisation programme, we are unlikely to find out the answers to these crucial questions today.

Our message to the First Minister is clear: your caution is understandable, but it’s time to chart a course back to normality – one that doesn’t leave Scotland trailing behind the rest of the UK as we attempt to put this nightmare behind us.