We're Number One, even when we're not
Nicola Sturgeon's ever-shifting standards when it comes to judging Scotland and England.
So, here’s how it works.
When Scotland is doing better than England on any given metric, that proves Scotland is better, which is to say that Nicola Sturgeon is better, since l’etat c'est Nic.
However, when England is doing better than Scotland, that is because of Reasons. Deeply Complex Reasons. Either that, or the difference in question is unimportant, or easily explained by context, or, that old jazz standard, Don’t Go Talkin’ My Scotland Down.
The First Minister’s statement announcing the removal of all remaining Covid restrictions fell a bit flat. Her decision not to remove all remaining Covid restrictions may have had something to do with it. But it did provide another Olympian display of logical gymnastics from the SNP leader.
Most important, of course, were the areas where Scotland was being more progressive than the big bad bogeymen Down There.
The First Minister was ably assisted by Douglas Ross, who thought it a good idea to complain about the cost of continuing to hand out free testing kits. I don’t know who dared Ross to make himself the most unpopular man in Scotland, but the bloke’s determined not to forfeit.
His gripe gave Sturgeon the opportunity to tell everyone that Scotland was ‘prudently’ continuing to make lateral flow tests available and ‘unlike the situation south of the border, making sure that, where we are advising testing, it is free of charge for people who need to test’.
SNP backbencher Stuart McMillan relayed reports that the Tories planned to ‘end funding for free Covid testing in special schools and children’s care homes in England’ and that this had prompted 'shock and disgust'. He sought assurance that ‘the Scottish Government’s approach to testing will continue to be guided first and foremost by public health expertise’.
Sturgeon confirmed that, where the Scottish Government continues to recommend testing, ‘we will ensure that access to tests... remains free of charge’. She prefaced her response by reminding him: ‘I have set out the funding constraints within which we operate’.
She had indeed, telling the chamber: ‘Regrettably, our freedom of manoeuvre here is severely limited by the fact that our funding is determined by UK Government decisions that are taken for England.’
If only Scotland made all its own funding decisions, we could be even better than England in even more ways.
What, though, of matters where Scotland was not doing so well? After all, the case rate has been rising faster than in free-wheeling, caution-to-the-wind England. She headed off any such suggestion by stating that the BA.2 sub-variant of Omicron had ‘become dominant in Scotland earlier than in England and Wales’, and that this explained ‘the more rapid increase in cases here than south of the border’.
The Tories' Dr Sandesh Gulhane noted that England boasted 90 long Covid clinics compared to zero in Scotland and cited the example of a Hertfordshire clinic which he had brought to the attention of Humza Yousaf.
‘When will the First Minister finally listen and ask her health secretary to deliver solutions instead of just announcing money?’ Dr Gulhane asked.
Sturgeon explained that ‘we have published an action plan’ and ‘devoted resources to it’. What’s more, health boards were ‘taking forward a number of the actions in it’. Long Covid clinics were ‘a part of that’ but they were ‘not the only part’. You see, health boards had to ‘ensure that they have in place holistic support services’ for long Covid sufferers and that work was ‘under way’. There were also ‘on-going efforts to ensure that we continue to understand the causes of long Covid and its impact on the health of individuals’. It was ‘all set out in the action plan,’ you know, which would ‘continue to be updated as appropriate.
It would take less time to move to Hertfordshire, register for a GP and get referred to the long Covid clinic than it would to find an answer amid that jargon pile-up.
Originally published in the Scottish Daily Mail on March 16, 2022.