This makes me want to cry, says Nicola as she plunges millions into festive misery
strain of the virus. Among the restrictions announced yesterday were:
Households will be allowed to meet up only on Christmas Day – and even then in strictly limited numbers. Overnight and extended visits will be banned;
A strict new travel ban. Crossing the Border will be outlawed for all but essential purposes. Scots will not be allowed to leave their own council areas. Police will be ordered to crack down on any breaches;
Pupils will not return to school until January 18, with children studying at home from January 11;
A three-week Level 4 lockdown for all of mainland Scotland starts on Boxing Day. As well as preventing the traditional Boxing Day sales, the move will be devastating for businesses as all non-essential shops, pubs and gyms will be ordered to close.
The tougher restrictions were a dramatic change of direction from the First Minister, who only days earlier had said the Christmas relaxations would go ahead as planned.
However, she said that new evidence of a mutant strain of the virus, which is 70 per cent more transmissible and spreading in Scotland, had forced a rethink.
While there are only 17 known cases, mostly in Glasgow, that is believed to be an underestimate, with a suspicion it may have taken hold in care homes and the Borders General Hospital, in Melrose, Roxburghshire.
Yesterday, Ms Sturgeon was involved in four-nation talks with other UK leaders and then held an emergency meeting with her Cabinet.
As Boris Johnson prepared to announce that there would be no Christmas mixing at all in London and the South-East of England, with tougher restrictions elsewhere and Wales ready for lockdown, Ms Sturgeon planned similarly draconian measures.
Yesterday she warned that Scotland now faced the ‘most serious and potentially dangerous juncture’ of the entire pandemic.
She said: ‘I would not be standing here on the Saturday before Christmas if I did not think this was necessary. I have spent many anxious and worried days over the past ten months but I have rarely felt more worried as I have today.
‘Standing here saying this actually makes me want to cry. I’m sure listening to it will make many of you want to cry.
‘I know how harsh it sounds. I know how unfair it is but this virus is unfair. It does not care about Christmas. It does not care about anything other than spreading itself as far and wide as possible.
‘It has just become, unfortunately, a lot better at doing that.’
The First Minister urged people to spend Christmas at home, if possible, and otherwise limit time spent in other people’s homes.
‘We will allow Christmas Day to go ahead but only use this flexibility if you really, truly need to,’ she said. ‘If you had people travelling to join you from elsewhere in the
UK that will no longer be permitted. We do have brighter times ahead but to get you to them I have to ask you for more sacrifices.’
As soon as Christmas Day turns to Boxing Day on the stroke of midnight, the whole of mainland Scotland will be put into Level 4 lockdown.
The islands, which have recently benefited from lower numbers of cases and fewer restrictions, will enter Level 3.
That means that for most of Scotland, non-essential shops will close, as will cafes, restaurants and hairdressers, in a devastating blow for retailers looking forward to the January sales.
Working parents also face the challenge of an extended Christmas holiday, and then ‘blended learning’ from January 11 to 18.
However, some schools will not close early this week, with the Scottish Government resisting calls from teachers and unions to do so.
Scotland has the lowest Covid case rate in the UK, with 112.6 cases per 100,000 of the population.
That compares with 571.7 in Wales, 219.6 in England and 174.9 in
Northern Ireland. In the past 24 hours, 41 deaths from coronavirus and 572 positive tests have been recorded north of the Border, though the test positivity rate fell from 4.2 per cent to 4 per cent.
Earlier, Mr Johnson told a Downing Street news conference he was making the changes with a ‘very heavy heart’. He said: ‘I know how much emotion people invest in this time of year, and how important it is, for instance, for grandparents to see their grandchildren, for families to be together.
‘So I know how disappointing this will be. But we must and we will be guided by the science. The tighter restrictions were backed by other party leaders, but there were calls for clarity on the evidence behind the decision.’
Scottish Tory leader Douglas Ross said families ‘will be devastated at these new measures’, adding: ‘None of us want this, but these sacrifices will save lives.’
Scottish Labour leader Richard Leonard said: ‘To win public confidence behind this significant tightening of restrictions requires persuasive evidence to be published, transparency and openness, and a substantial rise in testing, otherwise not only will there be disappointment, there will be a heightened risk of non-compliance.’
Scottish Lib Dem leader Willie Rennie called for schools to close early this week.
Ms Sturgeon felt she was compelled to act after experts warned that plans for a five-day relaxation of rules would be ‘catastrophic’.
‘I have rarely felt more worried than today’
‘We must and we will be guided by the science’
BACK in the days when we only had terrestrial television, the BBC was considered one of our great national institutions.
Whether for happy events, such as a great sporting fixtures, or sad commemorations, such as a state funeral, the BBC was a fulcrum around which the nation gathered.
Never was this more true than during the Christmas period.
That is why it is so dispiriting, albeit not unsurprising, to see the BBC’s dismal Christmas selection this year.
For me, and I’m sure for many others, the reasons for disappointment are endless.
First, the shortage of classic Christmas films. No longer are Elf, or Home Alone, for example, on our screens.
Instead, there is Kung Fu Panda 3 and Coco on offer – a movie about a boy trapped in the land of the living dead. While these examples may well be enjoyable to watch, by any reasonable estimation they are not Christmas films.
And among those programmes with a Christmas theme, I fear it’s no longer a guarantee of quality. There’s The Great British Sewing Bee: Celebrity Christmas Special, and Mrs Brown’s Boys Christmas Special – a sitcom that deeply divides opinion.
If BBC bosses had bothered to put together any sort of meaningful original programming, rather than resting on their Strictly Come
Dancing laurels, I might feel a little more charitable about their overall effort. But the schedule is littered with repeats and cheap game shows. The dearth of any new Christmas specials, in the vein of past favourites that united the nation around our television sets – such as Wallace and Gromit, Blackadder or Only Fools And Horses – is all too obvious.
The BBC’s failure is all the more disturbing in view of its powerful competition.
Netflix, for example, has a string of new commissions. Of course, we don’t yet know their quality but the streaming giant has certainly tried to inspire viewers’ attention.
And then there is the issue of funding. Via the licence fee, the BBC charges viewers £157.50 a year – and it’s a criminal offence not to pay.
For that, we should get in return some quality programming.
But unless the BBC ups its game, and rapidly, its right to keep charging an annual fee would, I believe, be impossible to justify.
With the challenge from subscription channels such as Netflix,
Amazon and Disney+, there is mounting pressure on the BBC to justify its compulsory tax.
At a minimum, I believe that non-payment of the licence fee should be de-criminalised.
Although the wealth of channels now on offer on all platforms and changing viewing habits mean the BBC will never match the 28million viewers it got in 1977 for The Morecambe and Wise Christmas Show, that doesn’t mean it should stop producing shows with the magic and quality to grab the nation’s imagination.
With its resources and heritage, this should not be impossible.
But, crucially, it will require the panjandrums at the top of the BBC to break out of their subsidised sloth and make an effort to embrace once again Lord Reith’s founding principles: to inform, educate and entertain.