Your question is boring the First Minister
SKETCH: An impatient Nicola Sturgeon fields journalists' queries at latest Covid briefing.
Science is a funny old business.
Take the JCVI, which sounds like something you shouldn’t operate under the influence of prescription medication, but is in fact the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation. They’re the recognised authority on vaccines — who should get which, when and how often — though they've still to settle the age-old ‘jab’ vs ‘jag’ controversy.
Nicola Sturgeon was at pains to stress that her government ‘has always followed’ the JCVI’s advice, mostly so she could say it was ‘extremely important’ they not rule out across-the-board vaccination for those aged 12 to 17.
Although the JCVI isn’t recommending such a policy, Sturgeon is open-minded about it because other countries are doing it. This is not to be confused with cutting the waiting period between vaccines from eight weeks to six, which Sturgeon is not open-minded about, even though other countries are doing it.
The First Minister is mad keen for science. (Terms and conditions apply.)
At least one other member of her government shares this ambivalence and, although not there in person, John Swinney was the star of Tuesday's briefing. The Deputy First Minister raised some eyebrows when he tweeted a graphic ranking the risk of catching Covid according to social distancing.
One of the image's claims was that two people, both masked and standing two metres apart, had a 0 per cent risk of catching the virus. You can see why education didn't improve much on his watch.
A scribbler from the Scotsman had the temerity to ask Sturgeon if this kind of thing was on the up and up, why her second-in-command was punting unsourced, evidence-lite claims on social media, and what it meant for the Scottish Government's mitigation policies.
'I'm going to cut to the chase from that rather long and laborious question,' she shot back. Steady on, Nicola, these aren't SNP backbenchers at FMQs. You don't get to write the questions as well as answer them.
She said Swinney's tweet was 'intended to illustrate what is absolutely the case, which is that wearing face masks protects people from transmission of the virus', though she did allow that 'in seeking to illustrate that, we should take care to use properly verified graphics and we'll certainly take that on board'.
Yes, that might be a good idea. Still, spare a thought for all those blather-merchants who've spent the last 16 months on TV, on social media and in newspaper columns effusing about the Scottish Government's superior messaging. If we don't knock this pandemic on the head soon, John Swinney will end up posting inspirational quotes on Facebook with the words ‘99 out of 100 won’t SHARE this but my REAL FRIENDS will copy and paste it onto THEIR timelines!!!’
Whatiffery can become tedious, I know, but what if Sajid Javid were to tweet a scientifically dubious meme featuring figures plucked with all the methodological rigour of the Countdown numbers round?
Laura Kuenssberg would doorstep his high school biology teacher. The Mirror would send a graduate trainee in a Covid spore costume to chase him through Whitehall. On a specially extended episode of Newsnight, members of Independent SAGE would weep through all six of their face masks.
In Scotland — where, remember, we take the pandemic Much More Seriously — the minister in charge of our response can undermine public health messaging and it’s okay because he meant well.
Mercifully, there was time during the 69-minute briefing to hold the Prime Minister to account. A telly hack relayed Dominic Cummings' claim that, at one point, the PM backtracked on restrictions because the virus only killed over-80s.
Did Sturgeon think this 'a resignation matter'?
'I don't know what Boris Johnson said or didn't say in relation to the allegations from Dominic Cummings,' the First Minister replied, 'so it's probably not appropriate for me to really comment in detail on that.'
Whereupon she commented in detail on that.
The gist was that any leader not taking the threat of Covid seriously 'should be asking themselves questions about whether they are fit for office'.
A commendable stance, but the SNP is really going to miss her.
Originally published in the Scottish Daily Mail on July 21, 2021.
No graphs, no slides, no maps (Scotland is as big as England), no clue !
Trump style briefings all talk no action! No science, all spin!
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