The doctor had to go, or risk distracting us from the real issues
There was only one way for this hugely embarrassing and politically damaging saga to end. The surprise was that it took so long for Nicola Sturgeon, the First Minister, and Dr Catherine Calderwood to finally part company.
It may have been entirely commendable for Ms Sturgeon to stand her chief medical officer. But it was wrong. Entirely wrong.
I’m not happy in reaching this conclusion as I have known, respected and liked this eminent doctor for several years, but I could see no way in which she could remain in post.
If she had stayed then Ms Sturgeon, and probably the British government too, would have had to face the fact that for many politicians, the media and for huge sections of a terrified and angry general public it will be this lady – and not the nation’s battle against a killer virus – who would have become the main issue. In the harsh world of politics, that’s what ultimately counts.
She admitted that not once but twice she drove the 40-odd miles to her second home at a time when she is on our television screens and in our newspapers constantly urging the rest of the population to stay at home and not to go off on non-essential trips to the countryside.
Whichever way you cut it and although the First Minister insisted that she still depended on the doctor’s medical support, her foolish actions threatened to drive a coach and horses through the official advice – advice that Dr Calderwood helped draw up.
Ms Sturgeon was extraordinarily generous in refusing initially to accept Dr Calderwood’s offer to resign and for insisting everyone makes mistakes. That is true, of course, but the reality is that for this senior official who has been absolutely crucial to Scotland’s, and indeed Britain’s, battle to combat the virus, this was no ordinary slip-up.
On the contrary, these trips earned her an official and extraordinary warning from the police.
There may well have been a difference in scale between her actions and that of joy-riders who have faced heavy criticism for leaving home and driving off to beauty spots and beaches, but the fact remains that she did what she’s wants us not to do.
Moreover, what is already sticking in the craw of many people is that this is a woman who has been a firm advocate of the severe restrictions imposed on the rest of the population who has decided to ignore them.
That her second home is in one of Scotland’s most expensive seaside villages, much favoured by Edinburgh’s better-off classes, will also not be lost on her critics.
Ms Sturgeon at first said she was dropping Dr Calderwood from press briefings and the media campaign. She hoped that would have enabled the doctor to hang on, albeit in a backroom role, but I’m certain she would have known it was a hopeless situation. That view was magnified by the ferocious level of protests she received from leading SNP politicians who said they were reflecting serious unease among the party faithful.
It may have been a mistake but it was a mistake that may have ended the career of a talented lady.