If we don’t get a shot in the arm, Westminster will get it in the neck
THE SNP is slippier than a wet market in Wuhan. The Nationalists’ ability to flip and flop according to political circumstances is mesmerising and was on display in all its lubricious guile at Holyrood yesterday.
A minute into proceedings, it oozed out of the First Minister’s announcement that ‘we will introduce regulations to legally prevent enforcement of eviction notices during the six-week period from December 11 to January 22’.
A commendable policy. Certainly more far-sighted than the Scottish Government minister who responded to earlier calls for such measures by insisting ‘there are legal protections in place on such matters’ (November 26), ‘no people can be evicted’ (August 12) and ‘the Scottish Government has already put in place the protection against eviction for six months’ (May 20).
The First Minister should have a word with that minister. Goes by the name of Nicola something...
The slick sophistry continued when Ruth Davidson reminded her that care home residents had been promised first dibs on the jab.
‘Although it might not be possible for the vaccine to be moved to care homes immediately,’ Sturgeon slipped and slid around her previous undertaking, ‘I remain hopeful... that that will become possible at an early stage, after we start receiving supplies.’
Ah, but she’s a canny one. She prefaced her volte-face with the slithery excuse: ‘I have heard the Prime Minister talk about exactly what I am going to talk about; it is not in any way unique to Scotland and is about the particular characteristics of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine.’
For those thinking ‘but isn’t the line that Boris has been a disaster on Covid and Sturgeon Florence Nightingale with a more active Twitter account?’, yes, that is the line. Boris is useless until he’s useful, and letting the First Minister skid around a broken promise is useful.
This is how Scottish politics works: Nicola takes all the credit, Westminster takes all the blame and John Swinney takes all the hard questions.
There was another fit of the wriggles when Richard Leonard brought up the case of Professor Hugh Pennington’s wife, who was given an appointment for her flu vaccine, turned up to discover it didn’t exist, got jabbed anyway but continues to receive new appointments.
If this is what happens with the annual flu shot, how would health boards manage a two-dose inoculation against a killer coronavirus?
Sturgeon conceded there had been some ‘problems and issues’ but blamed ‘the challenges of Covid’ before returning to a familiar bugbear: the unshakeable fear that someone, somewhere might be enjoying themselves without her permission. ‘Where possible, people should not interact over Christmas,’ she told MSPs. I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus has gone from Yuletide classic to Test and Protect tip-off.
Later, Jeane Freeman delivered a state
ment on the vaccine roll-out. In a departure from her colleague Joe FitzPatrick, she decided to deliver it while awake.
Two hours after Sturgeon’s statement, her health secretary revealed that care homes now would, after all, be getting the vaccine early. Given all these ministerial U-turns, Pfizer might want to shift production to a vertigo vaccine. The Covid antidote is being provided by the UK Government, Scotland’s brutal oppressor and its saviour from deadly disease.
I t hardly matters whether Scotland’s vaccination programme runs smoothly or not.
If we receive it in time, Nat polling will receive a booster shot. If we don’t get it in the arm, Westminster will get it in the neck.