Covid conferences canned

Ah, well, that’s it then. No more daily Covid briefings from the deep south. How will we cope? How will we know what’s going on? How will we manage without the daily test of trying to work out which government minister is actually speaking to us and what he/she is actually saying? Where will we gain the same level of rigorous intellectual application needed to distinguish the facts from the slogans? I dunno. They’ll be telling us we can go to the pub next. Oh, they have…

Well, at least in Englandshire they have and I suspect that Ms Sturgeon will not be far behind, given this week’s pronouncements on beer gardens. Although, strange as it may seem, especially in light of my initial adverse reaction to not being allowed out into convivial company for a jar or two while crowded up against people I barely know and will never see again (except in the emergency ward), I don’t really fancy a night down the boozer that much. If it’s a cross between risking someone spiking your drink and risking a second spike of “The Vehrus”, as it is known in these parts, I plan to stay at home and stick to the domestic tippling. No one can ever accuse me of not keeping the economy ticking over and alcohol suppliers in the manner to which they have all too readily become accustomed. Hairdressers next, let joy be unconfined!

Yup, now that the daily Covid conferences are being cavalierly consigned to the past (unlike the disease itself, unfortunately), we in Scotland will just have to make do with dour-if-informative old Nicola for relevant gen and Janey Godley spin-offs for the laughs. So how are we going to deal with the gaping void? In much the same way, I fancy, as we were doing before, since what was said was, almost universally, far from clear and was, almost universally, taken with the largest possible pinch of salt. It really didn’t help that the government (as well as, when it suited them, completely ignoring scientists wheeled out to back them up or not allowing them to say much in the first place) fielded a team of politicos that most of us wouldn’t have trusted to tell us the time. I personally wouldn’t trust Boris Johnson if he told me his name is Boris Johnson. Which, when you come to think of it, it isn’t. Or at least only partly.

How will we move forward in this great national adventure without Grant Shapps to ram home the telling phrase: “As I understand it…” How will we answer all those begged questions? Such as: “Just because you think you understand it, doesn’t actually make it so, does it?” And: “What in particular is it that you think you understand?” No answer, as my granny used to say, came the loud reply.

Along the way, of course, there has been much talk of unanswered journalistic (and public) questions being sorted out by “just having a word with…” the relevant colleague or even, in extremis, expert.

Which particular word, however, took on a new significance in conference-speak. Just as, in Dundee, entire conversations can be conducted using the simple syllable “eh” and in the Doric using “fit”, the ever-shuffling cabinet team made frequent creative use of the expression: “Er…”, swiftly followed by “Um…”, with “Ah…” coming in a creditable third.

I am sure, however, that we are all mightily reassured by the prime minister’s assurance that they will be back, if not on such a regular basis, like a kind of vaguely threatening Fu Manchu, insisting that: “The world shall hear from me again”, as he plots his next world-beating masterstroke. It doesn’t fill one full of confidence, especially when followed by the explanation that, of course, future public appearances will be timed to “coincide with significant announcements”. Back to those old begged questions again, I fear. Along the lines of: “Who decides what’s significant and how significant it is?” Followed swiftly by group wonderment about the use of the word “coincide”, as if some totally accidental collision of events has to take place before it is deemed worthy of being heard from these particular horses’ mouths.

The old showbiz maxim of: “Leave ’em wanting more” doesn’t quite apply in this case, especially when we haven’t been given much in the first place. Having said that, the notion of Boris and Co boring for England (and the rest of us) for the foreseeable future isn’t exactly top of the list of most people’s priorities. Lockdown, for all its faults, has offered many better things to do with our time. But I reckon that most of us would like to think that taking a still-serious situation suitably seriously for that same foreseeable future isn’t that much to ask.

A daily trip to the podium can’t take that much time and energy, even given a government style that is a monument to the concept of laid-back. Which is better, I suppose than lying down on the job. Or, if it comes to that, just simply lying…

“We in Scotland will just have to make do with our dour-if-informative old Nicola for gen

Picture: PA. Scenes such as this, of Transport Secretary Grant Shapps during a coronavirus briefing being broadcast from Downing Street, will no longer be delivered on a daily basis – “as I understand it”, at least.