Despite passport climbdown, clubs face unfair treatment
THERE’S no denying that the relief felt by Scotland’s embattled hospitality sectors after Tuesday’s announcement from the First Minister Nicola Sturgeon, when she went against the grain and ruled out extending her Government’s discredited Covid vaccine passport scheme across pubs, restaurants, cinemas and theatres, was as welcome as it was profound.
Ever since her doom-mongering Grinch John Swinney announced, just over a fortnight ago, that he was considering rolling this scheme out across the rest of hospitality, anxious and perplexed operators have been living in a state of fear, worrying themselves sick that this disproportionate policy would not “Save Christmas”, as his Government intended, but instead make it their very last.
So, it was heartening to hear that their desperate pleas for a modicum of yuletide spirit and for a smattering of Government goodwill to be shown had not fallen on deaf ears.
It was a complete reversal of policy, brought about after stinging criticism of their laughable 70-page evidence paper, which was described as “mince “by Libdem leader Alex Colehamilton. The document failed to demonstrate the health benefits of vaccine passports and prove that they are working. Coupled with pressure from the wider hospitality and tourism sectors, the First Minister was forced to climb down.
She stated she had concluded an extension would not be proportionate at this stage and dropped extending the scheme from her sack of measures. This meant businesses could now look forward to a stocking-filling, till-ringing, cracker of a Christmas with some degree of certainty, instead of a chilling winter of bankruptcy and life on the dole. Something which has become a depressing reality for nearly 20,000 businesses across Scotland.
Sadly, her Christmas cheer only stretched so far, and Santa Sturgeon’s stocking fillers were again thin on the ground for the supposed bad boys and girls of the night-time economy, the Covid lepers of hospitality – nightclubs, lateopening bars with dancing, and unseated live music venues with a capacity over 500.
For them, vaccine passports would remain in place for “at least a further three weeks”, which in Holyrood newspeak probably means an eternity. Begging the question that if the scheme is not being extended across hospitality because the case numbers are dropping, then why are they not also being scrapped for the night-time economy, especially when there is not a scrap of medical evidence to justify them at all? Why indeed?
They were fed a slim morsel of slightly overcooked turkey when she announced that from December 6, a recent negative lateral flow test result would also be allowed as an alternative entry condition to vaccination passports.
Why the change of heart? It all seems too little, too late. For well over a year, trade bodies SCMIT, NTIA and the SLTA have vigorously lobbied the Scottish Government for the introduction of lateral flow tests, a position strongly supported by Labour leader Anas Sarwar, only for their requests to be continually denied, dissed, or ignored.
They were deemed an acceptable entry requirement for the Euro 2020 fan zone, TRNSMT and for the elite of COP26 but not for ordinary people – with our Cabinet Health Secretary Humza Yousaf implying that we couldn’t be trusted as the results could be “falsified”. Well, now it seems we can.
You couldn’t make it up yet they still are, and this constant tinkering with policy, meddling, and deliberately keeping everybody on the edge over Covid is hamstringing business, stagnating recovery, as well as disenfranchising and polarising large swathes of the electorate – and, in turn, eroding confidence in the Government.
So, excuse me if am not rushing out of the traps as other senior trade figures were quick to do, armed with gushing platitudes and expressions of gratitude, to bask in the warm glow of the First Minister’s benevolence.
Because as it stands, this is only a reprieve – the threat of a rollout, the unnecessary warnings of further restrictions, and even more stringent infringements being placed on our civil liberties are still being made. I won’t have reasons to be cheerful until they’re lifted and the disproportionate crushing of our freedoms have completely ended.