Amazing isn’t it? Pursuing almost exactly the same policies, the wee Scottish lassie is being praised to the hilt, while the bumbling Boris buffoon is constantly berated.
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CORONAVIRUS
Coronavirus in Scotland: Sturgeon made the same mistakes as Johnson, but she talks a better game
Alex Massie
Sunday May 24 2020, 12.01am, The Sunday Times
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On February 26, 70 delegates from around the world gathered at the Hilton Edinburgh Carlton hotel on North Bridge for a conference organised by the American sportswear giant Nike.
One of the attendees was carrying the coronavirus and, it later became clear, infected at least 25 other people, including eight from Scotland. This “super-spreader” is believed to have introduced Covid-19 to Scotland about three days before the country’s first official case, in Tayside, was confirmed on March 1.
Despite this, the Scottish government did not inform the public about the Nike conference outbreak, and while some contact-tracing was carried out, employees of other companies, including Lloyds bank, who were using the hotel at the same time as the Nike delegates, were not contacted. Nor were tour guides who showed conference attendees around the Scottish capital’s Old Town.
It was not until March 11 that the first “community” transmission of the virus, unrelated to previous contacts or foreign travel, was confirmed, but the failure to properly investigate — or publicise — the Nike outbreak means that the virus could have been spreading in Scotland earlier than previously thought.
Nicola Sturgeon’s administration has been accused of “covering up” the conference outbreak and the failure to properly track all potential contacts has become a contentious issue north of the border. At the very least, a lack of candour has been evident.
Despite this, Sturgeon continues to draw praise for her handling of the emergency. One opinion poll suggested that nearly 70% of Scottish voters, including many Conservative and Labour supporters, approved of the first minister’s performance. That is as much a measure of Sturgeon’s communications skill as it is a reflection of the Scottish government’s actual performance.
The first minister has talked a good game and communication, now more than ever, is a vital part of the modern politician’s toolkit. On that front, Sturgeon has outperformed her Westminster rivals and counterparts. In Scotland there has never been any doubt that Sturgeon is running the show. In London — even after Boris Johnson’s return from illness — it has not always been obvious that the prime minister has got a grip on matters.
Despite that, should you care to scrutinise the record in greater detail, the picture of the Scottish government’s performance begins to take on a cloudy quality. Like governments everywhere, it has been forced to cope with a crisis it had not anticipated and, consequently, has been required to improvise a response.
The first minister has a fine knack of accepting in general that mistakes are unavoidable in dealing with an emergency of this sort, but a still finer ability to slip away from admitting any specific blunders. If we knew then what we know now, some of the decisions taken then might have been different. But of course such hindsight was not available at the time.
It seems clear that one of those mistakes was the decision to empty hospitals in March. Anticipating a surge in demand for hospital beds, the authorities transferred more than 900 patients into care homes without knowing if they were carrying the virus. Mandatory testing for those leaving hospital was not introduced until April 21. Part of the price of protecting the NHS was paid by care homes. Even on the metrics most favourable to the government, Scottish care homes have seen death rates as high as elsewhere in the UK and if the overall Scottish casualty rate remains lower, that is likely to reflect the fact that Scotland had fewer cases, proportionately, when lockdown was introduced.
At other times, far from leading the UK government, the Scottish government has been following it. While there are some differences between the Scottish and English schedules for leaving lockdown — notably a more generous allowance for socialising and a more cautious plan for schools reopening after the summer holidays — the broader picture is much the same.
Perhaps this should not be a surprise, since Johnson’s proposals are themselves largely similar to plans produced in other European countries. As Ruth Davidson, the former leader of the Scottish Tories, quipped on Friday, there have been times when watching the Scottish government has been like watching television on a +1 channel.
Add to this the problems, now reduced in scope but still not eliminated, with personal protective equipment provision and with testing, and a fair verdict might be that the Scottish government has done its best without doing as well as it could have. Testing capacity has been increased, though not yet to the 15,500 daily level the government believes is necessary for a test, trace and isolate policy. Each day, however, thousands of tests that could be done go wasted. Although the government has promised to hire 2,000 contact tracers by the end of the month, as of Friday only around 1,300 had been hired or were in the process of being hired.
Still, many Scots believe Sturgeon’s government has performed much better than Johnson’s. Kenny MacAskill, the Scottish National Party MP for East Lothian, contrasted Sturgeon’s “virtually flawless” performance with what he deemed the UK government’s “utterly hapless” record. Last week #ThankYouNicola spent a day trending at the top of the Twitter charts as thousands of Scots showered praise on Sturgeon. “You are the most outstanding leader any country could wish for. In the face of adversity you have stayed strong for the people of Scotland,” a typical message read.
And yet, looked at in the round, the Scotland has pursued largely the same policies as has England, and those policies have been afflicted by many of the same problems. For all that there has been a “four-nations” approach to Covid-19, the virus itself is a one-nation problem that recognises no internal frontiers.
