The Scottish Politics Thread

[westport]

Watch out, watch out, five tiers are about

[dpedin]

The restrictions to Aberdeen were not just the pubs where the initial outbreak happened. The local restricitons also included not meeting other housholds indoors and a travel limit of not more than 5 miles, care home visits were for only essential visits, so we were stopped from visiting family and friends as well. The SG were slow to act with the outbreak in Glasgow, didnt impose the same level of restrictions irrespective of where the initial outbreak occured, the two cities were treated very differently and we have seen what has happened with the explosion of cases across the whole of the central belt from not imposing the same level of lockdown. I suspect they were trying a different approach to see if they could bring it under control with less onerous restrictions and keep more of the economy open as there was a pretty big backlash in Aberdeen to the restrictions, it clearly didnt work and i am sure they are regretting not closing down tighter when they had the chance.

The test & trace system clearly isnt working the way that it is meant to and is at the moment overwhelmed by the sheer number of cases, the encouraging news as Biffer has just said is that it appears to be levelling off in terms of daily new cases and not increasing exponentially, will see how the NHS copes in due course, the deaths being reported will be magnified by the fact it is now into some care homes again and we know they have a high mortality rate.

I think we are probably agreeing, sort of? Central belt spread is predominately about pop density and levels of deprivation etc. plus the impact of students going back to Uni and spread unfortunately now reaching some care homes again.

However I would disagree about the Test and Protect system - in Scotland it is a combination of the serco run national lighthouse system and local Health Boards and PH teams provision. The national serco testing system isn't working and is failing badly. The testing provision and tracing system run by HBs seems to be working well with quicker turnaround times and far higher levels of tracing and self isolation than the privatised call centre system down south is achieving. There are still some problems with ongoing testing provision in care homes. There were however problems in getting the info on positive cases transferred from the national serco run testing & lighthouse labs system back into HBs quickly and accurately enough, this caused real problems with the tracking process. The benefit of local TaP system is that the HBs can analyse the positive case data, down to individual post code level, in great detail and tie in into other data they have to target actions required. They are doing this daily and are able to respond very, very quickly. However it does depend upon folk getting tested promptly and results being turned around quickly and the serco testing via drive in and home testing is still failing to hit the targets required. I suspect we will see Scotland expanding its own lab capacity and begin to reduce its use of the national system over time cause it aint working.

For clarity, can I just check something? My understanding was that in England tracing was being done by a mix of SerCo and the local public health teams. In Scotland I thought it was solely the local public health teams.

Also, I didn't think Serco were involved in the lighthouse labs - as far as I understood it, it was Department of Health, Medicines Discovery Catapult, UK Biocentre, the University of Glasgow, GSK, AstraZeneca, the University of Cambridge, and PerkinElmer, different ones being involved in each of the labs.

Finally, a useful resource that you might not have seen - the public health Scotland dashboard has expanded recently - you can now look at the numbers of cases right down to neighbourhoods of a few thousand across Scotland. breakdowns and trends available at NHS board and council level, and if you want you can figure it out at neighbourhood level. For instance you can see that although Lothian health board numbers have been pretty level across the last few weeks, you can see that it's increasing in West Lothian, decreasing in Edinburgh and a fair bit lower in Midlothian and East Lothian.

https://public.tableau.com/profile/phs. ... 0/Overview

Website is a useful resource! Cheers.

You are right about the tracing arrangements although I am not sure what the split is between public and private provision down south. Recent announcements and funding going to the regions would suggest they are trying top increase local tracing capacity down south.

This BMA article is pretty useful in explaining the complex web of private sector involvement in the track and test system generally.

https://www.bma.org.uk/news-and-opinion ... -providers

You are right that the various labs are operationally managed by the organisations you mention but as I understand it the coordination of the testing and what gets done where, reporting, etc is managed centrally. For example recently there were delays in getting tests done and results from the Glasgow lab for NHS Scotland because it was dealing with a backlog from testing from down south, I think some tests from Scotland were subsequently sent abroad for processing? The BMA describe the complexity of the contracting processes:

'Among the deals which have been struck: DHL, Unipart and Movianto to procure, manage logistics of and store PPE (personal protective equipment); Deloitte to manage the logistics of national drive-in testing centres and super-labs; Serco to run the contact tracing programme; Palantir and Faculty A.I. to build the COVID-19 datastore and Capita to onboard returning health workers in England.'

I think Deliotte have then sub contracted some of this coordination to Serco but I could be wrong. Serco have sub contracted a lot of the work to others including Sitel, based in Scotland providing tracing call centre services for NHS England. The BMA article is a useful critique.

[Slick]

Just got back from a meeting at a clients office (just me and him in the office). We have a 30minute chat then as I'm leaving he mentions "my son is at home (5 yrs old) isolating because there has been an outbreak in his class"

FFS.

[Jock42]

[some emergencies arriving at A&E will need to be diverted to bigger hospitals which access to non covid10 ICU beds. Could be quite a distance away!



Also a number of beds will have to be ring fenced for emergency work, folk coming in through A&E and who require an emergency procedure or care. Without this capacity A&E units will quickly clog up and the whole system will grind to a halt. Emergency demand is actually highly predictable and hospitals will know how many beds they need for this.

These 2 aren't really an issue. In the former many EDs don't accept what they used to a year or 2 ago, Perth is a glorified MIU and will officially be downgraded soon imo. The latter is the way EDs have been operating since Feb, thats not changed.

[Jock42]

On a personal not, I'm possed off with myself for entering this conversation as I'm utterly bored with COVID

[tc27]

Just got back from a meeting at a clients office (just me and him in the office). We have a 30minute chat then as I'm leaving he mentions "my son is at home (5 yrs old) isolating because there has been an outbreak in his class"

FFS.

[Northern Lights]

Just got back from a meeting at a clients office (just me and him in the office). We have a 30minute chat then as I'm leaving he mentions "my son is at home (5 yrs old) isolating because there has been an outbreak in his class"

FFS.

Was chatting to a friend at the weekend who i ran into by chance, she had just finished isolating as her son who is in halls at one of the Aberdeen Unis (will keep it vague as to which one) got Covid, anyway he initially said im not getting a test none of the rest of the students are they are just keeping their head down and getting on with it as they didnt want the backlash etc that the students were getting, she flipped and ordered him to the test centre, he gets confirmed and everything kicks in. What i found more disappointing was the that the chat with the students was they werent going to get tested so we dont actually know the size of the problem, purely anecdotal but i wonder how widespread this thought process is.

As an aside this is one of the very few confirmed cases i know personnally, we have been very sheltered up here which probably also explains why the majority of folk i see about paying next to no attention to any of the restrictions other than slapping a mask on when entering a shop.

[Slick]

Just got back from a meeting at a clients office (just me and him in the office). We have a 30minute chat then as I'm leaving he mentions "my son is at home (5 yrs old) isolating because there has been an outbreak in his class"

FFS.

Was chatting to a friend at the weekend who i ran into by chance, she had just finished isolating as her son who is in halls at one of the Aberdeen Unis (will keep it vague as to which one) got Covid, anyway he initially said im not getting a test none of the rest of the students are they are just keeping their head down and getting on with it as they didnt want the backlash etc that the students were getting, she flipped and ordered him to the test centre, he gets confirmed and everything kicks in. What i found more disappointing was the that the chat with the students was they werent going to get tested so we dont actually know the size of the problem, purely anecdotal but i wonder how widespread this thought process is.

As an aside this is one of the very few confirmed cases i know personnally, we have been very sheltered up here which probably also explains why the majority of folk i see about paying next to no attention to any of the restrictions other than slapping a mask on when entering a shop.

I hadn't heard about many in this current cycle either but my cousin in North Lanarkshire called last night and he has it so isolating with the family.

[Bimbowomxn]

[dpedin]

[some emergencies arriving at A&E will need to be diverted to bigger hospitals which access to non covid10 ICU beds. Could be quite a distance away!



Also a number of beds will have to be ring fenced for emergency work, folk coming in through A&E and who require an emergency procedure or care. Without this capacity A&E units will quickly clog up and the whole system will grind to a halt. Emergency demand is actually highly predictable and hospitals will know how many beds they need for this.

These 2 aren't really an issue. In the former many EDs don't accept what they used to a year or 2 ago, Perth is a glorified MIU and will officially be downgraded soon imo. The latter is the way EDs have been operating since Feb, thats not changed.

I agree and wasn't saying they were issues but making the point that when folk quote total bed numbers including ICU beds across the whole of the NHS they fail to realise that many of these beds are not available for covid19 patients or else covid19 can mean the available bed numbers are reduced. Also I know that we have Trauma networks and have different levels of MIU/A&E but if ICU beds are unavailable because of covid19 in smaller hospitals then they will be sending even more patients to other units in the network. We either send ICU covid19 patients to larger hospitals with more flexibility and capacity or else we send more emergency patients to the same hospitals and threaten clogging up their front doors. At the moment we are doing ok but its these sort of issues that we are trying to prevent in protecting the NHS.

[Lobby]

I do hope our Scottish posters are being careful not to commit thoughtcrimes in their own homes. The SNP are listening and won’t hesitate to prosecute.

[media] [/media]

[Biffer]

I do hope our Scottish posters are being careful not to commit thoughtcrimes in their own homes. The SNP are listening and won’t hesitate to prosecute.

[media] [/media]

I don't have access to the Times, but I'd like to see some context here, rather than a sub editor's take on a scottish reporting piece in a paper that's massively anti SNP.

[Tichtheid]

I do hope our Scottish posters are being careful not to commit thoughtcrimes in their own homes. The SNP are listening and won’t hesitate to prosecute.

[media] [/media]

I don't have access to the Times, but I'd like to see some context here, rather than a sub editor's take on a scottish reporting piece in a paper that's massively anti SNP.

There are ways to read it - I read the Times and the Torygraph, sometimes the other tabloids - know your enemy!

It seems there is a loophole whereby actions and words that would be actionable as hate crimes in day to day life can't be prosecuted if they take place in someone's home, the so-called "dwelling defence".
Humza Yousaf wants to close that loophole.

There is another defence in art or in journalism, the example Yousaf gives is that could allow some objectionable views aired in dubious online publications under the defence of "journalism", likewise in plays or books.

I'm not sure myself, I'd never want to normalise any form of racist or 'phobic language, action or incitement, so on the one hand I agree with him, on the other it's difficult to know where to draw the line and I wouldn't want any kind of artistic McCarthyism

[clydecloggie]

He has a fair point, but at the same time this will be almost impossible to prove and does reek of a government that doesn't mind a bit of intrusion into people's personal space.

To me, it reinforces the point that the SNP is light of top-level legal minds (or puts the ones they do have on the periphery) and a bit too far on the trigger happy side in the eternal discussion of freedom of speech versus inciting violence/fascism etc.

[tc27]

Humza is over promoted...the talent pool is pretty thin at the MSP level. If Robertson comes back then I a sure he will get a big job (and presumably become the heir to the throne).

Interestingly it looks like the SNP has spent the cash it raised for the 2017 Scotref despite promising to ring-fence it.

https://www.heraldscotland.com/news/188 ... 0-deficit/

[tc27]

An interesting read:

https://whatscotlandthinks.org/2020/10/ ... n-england/

[Slick]

Humza is over promoted...the talent pool is pretty thin at the MSP level. If Robertson comes back then I a sure he will get a big job (and presumably become the heir to the throne).

Interestingly it looks like the SNP has spent the cash it raised for the 2017 Scotref despite promising to ring-fence it.

https://www.heraldscotland.com/news/188 ... 0-deficit/

He is phenomenally thick, particularly for someone in his position, which doesn’t help when he is trying to articulate things. The words he spoke above are pretty much the same as quoted in the Times, it’s not a hatched job. I suspect this will be a step too far for this bill.

[Biffer]

Levels announced for all areas. Pretty much the same as now, except -

Western and Northern Isles, Highland and Moray to level 1 - 6/2 indoors and outdoors, nearly everything open including pubs and restaurants.
Dundee moves up to level 3

Main change with the new levels is that the cafe / restaurant distinction is gone, which was a pretty much unenforceable distinction anyway.

Lanarkshire was close to moving to level 4, which is pretty close to lockdown - everything shut except essential shops, construction, manufacturing, and schools.
East Lothian and Edinburgh look likely to move to level 2 if they continue in the current direction.

[Caley_Red]

Humza is over promoted...the talent pool is pretty thin at the MSP level. If Robertson comes back then I a sure he will get a big job (and presumably become the heir to the throne).

Interestingly it looks like the SNP has spent the cash it raised for the 2017 Scotref despite promising to ring-fence it.

https://www.heraldscotland.com/news/188 ... 0-deficit/

He is phenomenally thick, particularly for someone in his position, which doesn’t help when he is trying to articulate things. The words he spoke above are pretty much the same as quoted in the Times, it’s not a hatched job. I suspect this will be a step too far for this bill.

Being thick isn't a problem, in my view, it's the deployment of his 'intellect' to issues of the law that worries me: clearly an authoritarian or someone too stupid to understand the ramifications of his own policies. What does Scotland do to deserve these cretins.

[Blackmac]

Levels announced for all areas. Pretty much the same as now, except -

Western and Northern Isles, Highland and Moray to level 1 - 6/2 indoors and outdoors, nearly everything open including pubs and restaurants.
Dundee moves up to level 3

Main change with the new levels is that the cafe / restaurant distinction is gone, which was a pretty much unenforceable distinction anyway.

Lanarkshire was close to moving to level 4, which is pretty close to lockdown - everything shut except essential shops, construction, manufacturing, and schools.
East Lothian and Edinburgh look likely to move to level 2 if they continue in the current direction.

The obsession with alcohol sales is the most baffling and one that I actually find quite sinister. Whilst I understand the need to prevent massed gatherings of pished youngsters, it's not exactly bloody hard to make a distintion to allow people to have a couple of drinks along with their meal prior to say 8pm.

The efforts made by some of our local bars and restaurants were superb and it is disgraceful to see them punished for their efforts when there is so little evidence to suggest they contributed to the increase in cases.

[Biffer]

Levels announced for all areas. Pretty much the same as now, except -

Western and Northern Isles, Highland and Moray to level 1 - 6/2 indoors and outdoors, nearly everything open including pubs and restaurants.
Dundee moves up to level 3

Main change with the new levels is that the cafe / restaurant distinction is gone, which was a pretty much unenforceable distinction anyway.

Lanarkshire was close to moving to level 4, which is pretty close to lockdown - everything shut except essential shops, construction, manufacturing, and schools.
East Lothian and Edinburgh look likely to move to level 2 if they continue in the current direction.

The obsession with alcohol sales is the most baffling and one that I actually find quite sinister. Whilst I understand the need to prevent massed gatherings of pished youngsters, it's not exactly bloody hard to make a distintion to allow people to have a couple of drinks along with their meal prior to say 8pm.

The efforts made by some of our local bars and restaurants were superb and it is disgraceful to see them punished for their efforts when there is so little evidence to suggest they contributed to the increase in cases.

Not entirely analogous to what you’re talking about but there’s some research here on upsurges in cases related to more eating out at restaurants and how the half a billion quid spent on eat out to help out looks like ir might have contributed to increased cases.

https://warwick.ac.uk/fac/soc/economics ... 7.2020.pdf

And some brief highlights from the author on Twitter

[Dogbert]

So - Scotland to follow England for a months shutdown - Yes , or No

[Blackmac]

So - Scotland to follow England for a months shutdown - Yes , or No

I think yes, because if the current system proves ineffective, the begging bowl will go unfilled .

[dpedin]

Wrong question! It should have read will England eventually adopt the same approach as Wales, NI and Scotland and go for a fire break lock down? The answer is yes thankfully they have seen the errors of their way and are implementing a lock down. Given they completely fecked up their regional approach and left it weeks too late to make the decision they have had to go for a full lock down as their numbers were running way out of control.

The evidence and modelling I have seen suggest SG current approach is slowly working, we have higher adherence to the rules up here and we implemented the local lock downs at at the right time and numbers seem to be flattening off/coming back down. However the numbers still look dodgy in a few areas - Lanarkshire and Glasgow remain problem areas. However the numbers per 100,000 have never quite reached the worrying hights as they have in many parts of England.The extension of the original furlough scheme will help in areas where folk can't afford to isolate. There is still a high level of trust in the SG and in the implementation of the tier approach generally across the country.

The clusterfuck down south was sadly highly predictable and the loss of confidence in the UK Gov in England is now a major problem for the Blonde Bumblecunt. The false promises, ignoring scientific advice, getting into fights with local leaders, not looking at what is going on across Europe and the constant changing of advice and strategy has been awful. Test and trace is a disaster, appointing their mates to head up public sector organisations for which they have zero competence for, the overuse of hugely expensive private consultants who have no track record in what they are being asked do do and the emerging evidence of corruption in the awarding of huge public contracts to shell companies being set up by their buddies to supply PPE is the last straw for many. They have lost the public and it is hugely worrying.

[Biffer]

Wrong question! It should have read will England eventually adopt the same approach as Wales, NI and Scotland and go for a fire break lock down? The answer is yes thankfully they have seen the errors of their way and are implementing a lock down. Given they completely fecked up their regional approach and left it weeks too late to make the decision they have had to go for a full lock down as their numbers were running way out of control.

The evidence and modelling I have seen suggest SG current approach is slowly working, we have higher adherence to the rules up here and we implemented the local lock downs at at the right time and numbers seem to be flattening off/coming back down. However the numbers still look dodgy in a few areas - Lanarkshire and Glasgow remain problem areas. However the numbers per 100,000 have never quite reached the worrying hights as they have in many parts of England.The extension of the original furlough scheme will help in areas where folk can't afford to isolate. There is still a high level of trust in the SG and in the implementation of the tier approach generally across the country.

The clusterfuck down south was sadly highly predictable and the loss of confidence in the UK Gov in England is now a major problem for the Blonde Bumblecunt. The false promises, ignoring scientific advice, getting into fights with local leaders, not looking at what is going on across Europe and the constant changing of advice and strategy has been awful. Test and trace is a disaster, appointing their mates to head up public sector organisations for which they have zero competence for, the overuse of hugely expensive private consultants who have no track record in what they are being asked do do and the emerging evidence of corruption in the awarding of huge public contracts to shell companies being set up by their buddies to supply PPE is the last straw for many. They have lost the public and it is hugely worrying.

I think we have to realise one of the factors at play here. It’s their adherence to their ideology - the market will provide and the people paid the most money must be the smartest. They genuinely can’t believe that the highly paid consultants aren’t the best people for the job - it’s not that they just want to siphon money off into mates pockets, although there may be a whack of that happening, they genuinely believe they’re doing the right thing, and that someone who is excellent when it comes to management consultancy in a bank has all the skills to provide the right solutions in this situation as well. I mean, they’re obviously wrong, but they’re so tied in to these beliefs as a fundamental tenet of everything they do, that they can’t believe or accept that it isn’t working. They really do believe they’re doing the right thing, and make massive logical twists to help themselves believe that, certain that in the long run they’ll be proved right.

[tc27]

Sense of smugness in the last two posts seems misplaced. Scotland has not the best performing devolved admin and equally populated regions of England have experienced less deaths...arguably England is following Wales and NI into a firebreak lockdown but Scotland is currently following the regional lockdown model just with some extra tiers?

Logically surely the best course of action is for Scotland to follow the rest of the UK (because furlough has beong extended)?

[Biffer]

Sense of smugness in the last two posts seems misplaced. Scotland has not the best performing devolved admin and equally populated regions of England have experienced less deaths...arguably England is following Wales and NI into a firebreak lockdown but Scotland is currently following the regional lockdown model just with some extra tiers?

Logically surely the best course of action is for Scotland to follow the rest of the UK (because furlough has beong extended)?

I really wasn’t trying to be smug, it’s more a general thing about the way the UK’s response to the pandemic has been managed, and I don’t think I said anything about things being better here. I think it’s actually their response to pretty much every policy question.

I’d only be willing to start following a UK lead if we had some kind of indication that they understood what they’d done wrong first time round.

[dpedin]

Sense of smugness in the last two posts seems misplaced. Scotland has not the best performing devolved admin and equally populated regions of England have experienced less deaths...arguably England is following Wales and NI into a firebreak lockdown but Scotland is currently following the regional lockdown model just with some extra tiers?

Logically surely the best course of action is for Scotland to follow the rest of the UK (because furlough has beong extended)?

I really wasn’t trying to be smug, it’s more a general thing about the way the UK’s response to the pandemic has been managed, and I don’t think I said anything about things being better here. I think it’s actually their response to pretty much every policy question.

I’d only be willing to start following a UK lead if we had some kind of indication that they understood what they’d done wrong first time round.

The regional lockdown model in England didnt work partly because they were slow off the blocks and partly because they have lost the confidence of the public and screwed up the relationship with local/regional leaders. The arguments over £5m for Manchester, the lack of evidence given to justify lock downs, the releasing of guidance/regulations on Twitter late at night, the debacle of being shown the morale highground by Marcus Rashford on school meals doesn't add up to a Gov in charge of the situation. The Blonde Bumlecunt had fecked up big style - the leaders in the devolved Govs haven't got it right either but they are nowhere near the shitshow of the UK Gov.

[westport]

Sense of smugness in the last two posts seems misplaced. Scotland has not the best performing devolved admin and equally populated regions of England have experienced less deaths...arguably England is following Wales and NI into a firebreak lockdown but Scotland is currently following the regional lockdown model just with some extra tiers?

Logically surely the best course of action is for Scotland to follow the rest of the UK (because furlough has beong extended)?

I really wasn’t trying to be smug, it’s more a general thing about the way the UK’s response to the pandemic has been managed, and I don’t think I said anything about things being better here. I think it’s actually their response to pretty much every policy question.

I’d only be willing to start following a UK lead if we had some kind of indication that they understood what they’d done wrong first time round.

And yet England were doing the same thing as Germany, France, Spain and Italy, albeit a couple of weeks later, before they also went into a further lockdown

[Biffer]

Sense of smugness in the last two posts seems misplaced. Scotland has not the best performing devolved admin and equally populated regions of England have experienced less deaths...arguably England is following Wales and NI into a firebreak lockdown but Scotland is currently following the regional lockdown model just with some extra tiers?

Logically surely the best course of action is for Scotland to follow the rest of the UK (because furlough has beong extended)?

I really wasn’t trying to be smug, it’s more a general thing about the way the UK’s response to the pandemic has been managed, and I don’t think I said anything about things being better here. I think it’s actually their response to pretty much every policy question.

I’d only be willing to start following a UK lead if we had some kind of indication that they understood what they’d done wrong first time round.

And yet England were doing the same thing as Germany, France, Spain and Italy, albeit a couple of weeks later, before they also went into a further lockdown

Not the same as Germany to be fair, their in country response has been different.

[KingBlairhorn]

Sense of smugness in the last two posts seems misplaced. Scotland has not the best performing devolved admin and equally populated regions of England have experienced less deaths...arguably England is following Wales and NI into a firebreak lockdown but Scotland is currently following the regional lockdown model just with some extra tiers?

Logically surely the best course of action is for Scotland to follow the rest of the UK (because furlough has beong extended)?

I really wasn’t trying to be smug, it’s more a general thing about the way the UK’s response to the pandemic has been managed, and I don’t think I said anything about things being better here. I think it’s actually their response to pretty much every policy question.

I’d only be willing to start following a UK lead if we had some kind of indication that they understood what they’d done wrong first time round.

And yet England were doing the same thing as Germany, France, Spain and Italy, albeit a couple of weeks later, before they also went into a further lockdown

There are two things that are becoming clear in all of this:
1. It is not just the things you do that matter, it is also the timing of when you do them. To get both decisions correct simultaneously in the face of at best conflicting evidence is very difficult; and
2. The countries we are trying to copy/learn from are the wrong ones. I can see the logic of following the lead of other large Western economies as both the economies are largely similar but also the pysche of the people is similar. Unfortunately, the examples we really need to follow are those of the East Asian countries, and I am not sure we have the political cache or public appetite to do so.

[tc27]

Wrong question! It should have read will England eventually adopt the same approach as Wales, NI and Scotland and go for a fire break lock down? The answer is yes thankfully they have seen the errors of their way and are implementing a lock down. Given they completely fecked up their regional approach and left it weeks too late to make the decision they have had to go for a full lock down as their numbers were running way out of control.

The evidence and modelling I have seen suggest SG current approach is slowly working, we have higher adherence to the rules up here and we implemented the local lock downs at at the right time and numbers seem to be flattening off/coming back down. However the numbers still look dodgy in a few areas - Lanarkshire and Glasgow remain problem areas. However the numbers per 100,000 have never quite reached the worrying hights as they have in many parts of England.The extension of the original furlough scheme will help in areas where folk can't afford to isolate. There is still a high level of trust in the SG and in the implementation of the tier approach generally across the country.

The clusterfuck down south was sadly highly predictable and the loss of confidence in the UK Gov in England is now a major problem for the Blonde Bumblecunt. The false promises, ignoring scientific advice, getting into fights with local leaders, not looking at what is going on across Europe and the constant changing of advice and strategy has been awful. Test and trace is a disaster, appointing their mates to head up public sector organisations for which they have zero competence for, the overuse of hugely expensive private consultants who have no track record in what they are being asked do do and the emerging evidence of corruption in the awarding of huge public contracts to shell companies being set up by their buddies to supply PPE is the last straw for many. They have lost the public and it is hugely worrying.

1. Scotland is now the odd one out in not having a formal 'firebreak' - will it follow Wales, NI and England? How many days will we have to wait to satisfy Sturgeons need to be different?

2. If its "a cluster fuck down South'" then the situation in Scotland in the metric that matters (excess deaths per million) is only marginally better (874 excess deaths per million vs 771). Scotland is behind NI in this measure (and regions in England).

Sturgeons coms strategy is miles better than the Downing Street operation but that is about it.

[Dogbert]

Huge parts of Scotland don't need a '"FireBreak" . and damage that goes along with it '

Shetland / Western Islands/ Shetland / Moray , Angus, Argyle and Bute , Highland , Borders , Aberdeen shire , Aberdeen city , Stirling . Perth and Kinross in the past 7 days have had less than 65 Cases per 100K population

Out of all the UK 380 local authorities the bottom The bottom 5 local authorities with the lowest number of cases in the last 7 days were Highland / Moray / Orkney , Shetland , and Western Isles

I really struggle to see why these huge parts of out country need to go into a months long Shutdown.

Of course One of the issues with Firebreaks for the devolved regions was that when they asked for Furlough to be extend in order to let them put in tight restrictions they deemed necessary to suppress viral infection. Downing Street said no as there isn't enough money.

Magically , that no longer seems to be the case , doesn't sound like a partnership of equals.

Of course , if they had , even without that support , put the country in lock down , you would have had the whole North British brigade howling - damned if you do , Damned if you don't

[tc27]

I take your point about not all areas needing strict lock-down (the same is true in England and Wales) - I was responding (perhaps a little flippantly) to this:

England eventually adopt the same approach as Wales, NI and Scotland and go for a fire break lock down

WRT furlough - my head is in my hands at how bad this government is at handing easy PR wins to the nationalists at times. Furlough is possible because of the ability of the BoE to essentially print money and its the kind of fiscal intervention that would be impossible if Scotland had voted 'Yes' in 2014 or at some point in the future. Devolution is not currently setup to handle the interaction between public health decisions (devolved) and massive fiscal interventions (reserved)..its mess that requires consideration of from HMG and genuine good faith communications from both sides to work properly.

[Biffer]

I take your point about not all areas needing strict lock-down (the same is true in England and Wales) - I was responding (perhaps a little flippantly) to this:

England eventually adopt the same approach as Wales, NI and Scotland and go for a fire break lock down

WRT furlough - my head is in my hands at how bad this government is at handing easy PR wins to the nationalists at times. Furlough is possible because of the ability of the BoE to essentially print money and its the kind of fiscal intervention that would be impossible if Scotland had voted 'Yes' in 2014 or at some point in the future. Devolution is not currently setup to handle the interaction between public health decisions (devolved) and massive fiscal interventions (reserved)..its mess that requires consideration of from HMG and genuine good faith communications from both sides to work properly.

But it reflects the UK government’s over riding priorities. When they had a third of England under near lockdown, they flat refused to extend furlough, it was unaffordable. When it affects London and the south east all of a sudden it’s available.

[tc27]

I take your point about not all areas needing strict lock-down (the same is true in England and Wales) - I was responding (perhaps a little flippantly) to this:

England eventually adopt the same approach as Wales, NI and Scotland and go for a fire break lock down

WRT furlough - my head is in my hands at how bad this government is at handing easy PR wins to the nationalists at times. Furlough is possible because of the ability of the BoE to essentially print money and its the kind of fiscal intervention that would be impossible if Scotland had voted 'Yes' in 2014 or at some point in the future. Devolution is not currently setup to handle the interaction between public health decisions (devolved) and massive fiscal interventions (reserved)..its mess that requires consideration of from HMG and genuine good faith communications from both sides to work properly.

But it reflects the UK government’s over riding priorities. When they had a third of England under near lockdown, they flat refused to extend furlough, it was unaffordable. When it affects London and the south east all of a sudden it’s available.

I agree it looks bad.

[Dogbert]

I take your point about not all areas needing strict lock-down (the same is true in England and Wales) - I was responding (perhaps a little flippantly) to this:

England eventually adopt the same approach as Wales, NI and Scotland and go for a fire break lock down

WRT furlough - my head is in my hands at how bad this government is at handing easy PR wins to the nationalists at times. Furlough is possible because of the ability of the BoE to essentially print money and its the kind of fiscal intervention that would be impossible if Scotland had voted 'Yes' in 2014 or at some point in the future. Devolution is not currently setup to handle the interaction between public health decisions (devolved) and massive fiscal interventions (reserved)..its mess that requires consideration of from HMG and genuine good faith communications from both sides to work properly.

OK lets look at the figures UK ( for COVID 19 purposes ) has been split up into about 380 Local areas - Looking at the past 7 days new cases ( per 100K) we can rank these in order

83 are in England, 10 in Wales , 4 in Northern Ireland , and 3 in Scotland , in fact there is not a single Scottish Area in the Top 70

The 7 day Average percentage of tests conducted today in Scotland was 6.13%, it peaked around a week ago at just over 98%

In England the latest Figure was 8.0% and rising , In Wales 12% and rising , In Northern Ireland 10.71 - but falling 12.5% since last week

Do you still think Scotland - at this point in time requires a National Lock down , with all the pain & misery that goes along with it ?


Again
Over the last 7 days the increases per country per 1m Population - Wales 2857 , N.Ireland 2646 , England 2465 , Scotland 1521 -

Which country seems to be handling this better currently . Luck , or Policy ?

It's not Public relations that tell devolved governments that they can't have the funds to cover national Lock downs / Firebreaks - It's Policy - A policy from Westminster , and completely out of Holyroods Hands - to say its PR is being mendacious

[Biffer]

I take your point about not all areas needing strict lock-down (the same is true in England and Wales) - I was responding (perhaps a little flippantly) to this:



WRT furlough - my head is in my hands at how bad this government is at handing easy PR wins to the nationalists at times. Furlough is possible because of the ability of the BoE to essentially print money and its the kind of fiscal intervention that would be impossible if Scotland had voted 'Yes' in 2014 or at some point in the future. Devolution is not currently setup to handle the interaction between public health decisions (devolved) and massive fiscal interventions (reserved)..its mess that requires consideration of from HMG and genuine good faith communications from both sides to work properly.

But it reflects the UK government’s over riding priorities. When they had a third of England under near lockdown, they flat refused to extend furlough, it was unaffordable. When it affects London and the south east all of a sudden it’s available.

I agree it looks bad.

Come on man, it’s more than just looking bad. It’s different policy for different parts of the country, and it chimes with the perceived wisdom that the Tories only care about The City.

It is bad. It doesn’t just look it.

[tc27]

But it reflects the UK government’s over riding priorities. When they had a third of England under near lockdown, they flat refused to extend furlough, it was unaffordable. When it affects London and the south east all of a sudden it’s available.

I agree it looks bad.

Come on man, it’s more than just looking bad. It’s different policy for different parts of the country, and it chimes with the perceived wisdom that the Tories only care about The City.

It is bad. It doesn’t just look it.

Ok lets have a single UK covid policy then regarding lockdowns.

Everyone going off in their own direction policy/lockdown wise really has not worked particularity as furloughing people requires action only the national government and central bank can perform.

[Dogbert]

I agree it looks bad.

Come on man, it’s more than just looking bad. It’s different policy for different parts of the country, and it chimes with the perceived wisdom that the Tories only care about The City.

It is bad. It doesn’t just look it.

Ok lets have a single UK covid policy then regarding lockdowns.

Everyone going off in their own direction policy/lockdown wise really has not worked particularity as furloughing people requires action only the national government and central bank can perform.

It would appear that even the Leader of the Scottish Conservative and Unionist party doesn't agree with you on this