The Courier & Advertiser (Angus and Dundee)
Covid division desperation
“They are trying to drive us apart as the disease retreats, hanging on to its last vestiges to create a ‘them and us’ that doesn’t exist
Nicola Sturgeon must be obeying her own five-mile travel rule because she clearly has no idea what goes on beyond her immediate inner circle. While she was toying with the tantalising (to her) notion of closing Scotland to incomers, her countrymen and women were gaily hopping back and forth across what remains a porous border.
On the A1, traffic might not be at its usual holiday peaks but, by all accounts, plenty of journeys are being made daily between Scotland and England by car. The west coast route via the M74 is also busy, with drivers travelling in both directions.
On the trains, too, passengers heading south are not even being asked for their tickets, although disembodied voices warn ominously of police checks on non-essential journeys.
Within Scotland, people now seem to be easing themselves out of the lockdown at their own pace, deciding which restrictions are still worth observing according to their lifestyle choices.
Edinburgh folk wishing to visit their posh golf courses 30 miles away are unlikely to be discouraged by the wagging finger of the first minister.
And nor are the young crowds gathering in city parks for protests, picnics or parties. And nor are those so desperate for a legal haircut that they will go from Aberdeen to Newcastle rather than wait until the Scottish Government eventually catches up with the rest of the UK.
From all walks of life, and no doubt from all political persuasions, people are taking the exit from lockdown into their own hands – apparently without jeopardising the nation’s health.
Sturgeon herself said that Scotland’s infection rates continue to fall, which suggests that a more mobile population is now not the menace it was at the height of the pandemic some two to three months ago.
However, instead of rejoicing at this tentative return to normality, she is threatening to lock us all up again.
One of her medical advisers, Professor Devi Sridhar, said that Scotland is pursuing an elimination strategy with the virus, contrary to Westminster’s – and most of Europe’s – policy of suppressing it.
This would work best if Scotland could shut its borders, an option even most Scottish Nationalists concede is impossible.
But what if we could quarantine our neighbours if they tried to bring their pestilence north? This, said Sridhar, would necessitate imposing checks on “imported cases”, like they do out in the Pacific and in New Zealand.
Sturgeon appeared to agree with this when she said on Monday: “If we did see an ongoing divergence between infection rates and levels in Scotland and other parts of the UK, from a public health perspective, we would require to give consideration about how we mitigate that and guard against infection rates rising in Scotland as a result.”
Admittedly, she was in a pretty big huff at the time because Boris Johnson had just announced air bridges between the UK and its favourite holiday destinations, a move that is proving to be popular with everyone except the inhabitants of Bute House.
She has still not (at the time of writing) formally ruled out a 14-day quarantine for visitors from England. Scotland would not be dragged into decisions made in London, she said, as her fellow Scots joined the Tui queues for cheap flights to the sun.
This is not just an argument about a different approach to Covid; Scotland has had dramatic variations in infection levels between hotspots around Glasgow and the virtually virus-free Northern and Western Isles and yet the same rules are applied to all regions.
Localised lockdowns – introduced in Leicester, which has seen a spike related to a meat processing factory – may well be the pattern for the immediate future, north and south of the border, but not between the constituent parts of the United Kingdom.
Sturgeon may dream about relocating Scotland to the antipodes or the South Pacific, but our attachment to England is indelible, and not just physically.
We all want much the same wherever we live – trustworthy advice from the top, based on good sense not political expediency, and then the freedom to make our own mistakes.
But our SNP leaders have spotted an opportunity even in adversity. While aspects of the lockdown joined Britons in a Blitz spirit – the nationwide applause for the NHS and the shared experience of rationed groceries – the nationalists bided their time.
Now they are trying to drive us apart as the disease retreats, hanging on to its last vestiges to create a “them and us” that doesn’t exist.
We have had enough. Covid has not discriminated between Scotland, England, Wales and Northern Ireland, we have gone through it together.
We will come out of it together, too, intermingling as we so choose, and there is no law that even the most determined separatist can conjure to break us up again.