Sturgeon can fling mud at BoJo with the best of them
FAiR play to Douglas Ross. if i found myself having to grill Nicola Sturgeon on Covid restrictions amid more allegations that my party leader had breached them, i’d have gone into hiding.
Mind you, if the Scottish Tory leader went into hiding every time Boris Johnson was mired in scandal, the Moray branch of the Witness Protection Programme would be run off its feet. As it happened, Sturgeon held her fire in her exchanges with Ross – probably because she didn’t fancy the competition. Sturgeon can fling mud at BoJo with the best of them but if it’s white-hot contempt you’re looking for, talk to Ross.
Yesterday, he was busy trying to disentangle the First Minister’s latest Covid-19 statement. in newspapers, when an editorial line changes, it’s known as a ‘reverse ferret’. Nothing so straightforward for the First Minister, who announced restrictions were being both scaled back and expanded. So ‘the attendance limit of 500 at large-scale outdoor events will be lifted’, but ‘our guidance will stipulate organisers of large events of 1,000 or more should check the certification status of at least 50 per cent of attendees rather than the current 20 per cent, or at least 1,000 people, whichever figure’s higher’. This ferret wasn’t just being reversed, it was being put through a full gym workout.
‘We know we cannot continually rely on restrictive measures to manage the virus because we know the harm that does,’ Sturgeon said. ‘Equally, we cannot be indifferent to the continued risks Covid poses to health.’
Ross asked ‘on the basis of what evidence’ the First Minister was contemplating expanding the vaccine passport scheme.
She contended ‘the vast majority of people accept, if the price of getting to access pubs or nightclubs on a normal basis is to show they are vaccinated, that might be a price they are willing to pay’. But ministers had ‘not taken a decision on extending the scope’. it sounds like that price might be slapped onto some other places, too.
Anas Sarwar again urged Sturgeon to share ‘up-to-date and comprehensive data’ on Covid with the public, which he said was ‘vital in order for the parliament to do its job properly’ and ‘vital to maintaining and building public trust’. ‘i am not sure whether Anas Sarwar is suggesting Public Health Scotland is somehow hiding some data that it has,’ Sturgeon riposted, ‘but that is not the case.’ it says a lot about her government – none of it good – that she associates a request for transparency with tinfoil-hatted conspiracy theories.
A draft of the remarks had been leaked in advance to the media.
THE Presiding Officer gave the Government a ticking off for the disclosure and said that ministers had assured her there would be an inquiry. its findings can be expected to leak as soon as ministers decide what they’ll be.
This sort of thing enrages the Tories’ parliamentary stickler-in-chief Stephen Kerr. He harrumphed to the Presiding Officer about making ministers ‘respect your good office’. The more obvious complaint was that this mish-mash of a statement was put out as a government communication in the first place. There shouldn’t be an internal inquiry to find the leaker, there should be a criminal inquiry to find the writer.
Sturgeon did not forgo entirely the juicy target of Boris Johnson’s serial stupidity. When Green MSP Gillian Mackay asked if he should resign, the First Minister got her chance to sound pained and concluded, in cod stateswoman-like tones, the office of PM would be enhanced by his departure.
i reckon it would but it was odd to hear Sturgeon say so. if Johnson is top of most people’s list for a good resigning, she might not want to know who comes second.