"Except for viewers in Scotland..." (Big Nic's COVID-19 response and lockdown)

[Blinder Data]

I've been getting sick of having to mentally add "in England" to every COVID-19 announcement that we read about, so this is a thread exclusively for Scotland-based Cabbers.

Obviously there's been some divergence within UK for a while but today's announcement from Johnson has really highlighted the difference for me, especially as I have family in England who seem to be having a grand old time while I try to follow our stricter guidelines as much as possible.

We still have the 2m physical distancing rule (which no one is following), the 5 miles from your house rule (which no one is following) and the mandatory mask on public transport (which... you can guess the rest).

Will we start to see frustration from businesses that they are not opening up as quickly as down south? Are you happy to be cooped up at home for longer? Personally I don't feel any pride or comfort towards our approach; I just want the most sensible decisions to be made for the conditions that we are in.

I'm glad that Sturgeon is in charge and not Johnson, but really that's for purely personal and political reasons - Scotland has fared almost as badly as England in terms of deaths in hospitals and care homes.

What say ye?

[Shoulders?-Stomach!]

I won't shite up this thread with my muddy English gutties but I tend to think the SNP will take any opportunity they can to diverge from Westminster as doing so is essential to reinforcing nationalism and destroying collectivism. It just so happens that not following Boris Johnson nearly at all times happens to be a good thing, and doing so is a good sell to pretty much everyone in Scotland, but there are superficial decisions made that to me just come across as petty.

There we are, that's my expected post slagging off the SNP out of the way, over to you lads.

[Zetetic]

The biggest threat to Wales, Scotland and NI is the furloughing scheme being drawn down. "UK" Labour will fail to oppose this.

Scotland has fared almost as badly as England in terms of deaths in hospitals and care homes.

It's worth being aware that England's death registration seems to be less accurate than the rest of us.

Looking at excess mortality, I believe we're all doing better than England still by quite a margin.

Particularly amongst younger people:

(From EuroMOMO. The y-axis isn't particularly legible I'm afraid, being in standard-deviations of the expected distribution of deaths, I believe.)

[Clatty McCutcheon]

I won't shite up this thread with my muddy English gutties but I tend to think the SNP will take any opportunity they can to diverge from Westminster as doing so is essential to reinforcing nationalism and destroying collectivism. It just so happens that not following Boris Johnson nearly at all times happens to be a good thing, and doing so is a good sell to pretty much everyone in Scotland, but there are superficial decisions made that to me just come across as petty.

There we are, that's my expected post slagging off the SNP out of the way, over to you lads.

Why is the English approach always the default position in your worldview?  It's probably more accurate to say that England has been diverging from the rest of the UK[nb]I know that NI is now a bit ahead in terms of re-opening, but they've had a much lower death rate all along).[/nb]

Also, there are factors such as, eg. school holidays in Scotland running from June to August, rather than July to September, as in England(?), so it's the obvious thing not to try and send kids back to school now.

Since you object to the SNP's 'petty' decisions, presumably you'd prefer a Keir Starmer-type approach of welcoming Johnson's statement and saying that the UK government are trying to do the right thing?

Ultimately, it'll be quite a while before what should and shouldn't have been done becomes fully clear, and there are certainly things that the Scottish government hasn't done well. However, I'm comfortable with the pace things are moving at here, and haven't found people to be quite as delinquent as Blinder Data has (although admittedly I haven't been on public transport).

[Danger Man]

Why is the English approach always the default position in your worldview?

Because he's a little Englander.

Alcho-holidays in poor countries doesn't hide the fact that he's basically Charles Pooter.

Chuck him £100,000 and he'd switch from red to blue in a second.

[Clatty McCutcheon]

Oh, and congrats on the forthcoming child/tadpole, Blinder Data.

(With ageing gits like me around, we've to get the average age down somehow; I'm forty years old now, Christ knows where the time goes)

[Clatty McCutcheon]

Well, so far we've had Shoulders saying what he usually does, me saying what I usually say, and Danger Man saying what he usually does.

Shaping up to be a classic CaB Scottish politics thread.

[Danger Man]

At least I was born in Scotland, unlike you two.

[Clatty McCutcheon]

I was born in Scotland, in one of Lanarkshire's beautiful post-industrial clachans. Forty bloody years ago *weeps*

[Danger Man]

I was born in Govan so I win the Scottish Top Trumps.

[jamiefairlie]

I won't shite up this thread with my muddy English gutties but I tend to think the SNP will take any opportunity they can to diverge from Westminster as doing so is essential to reinforcing nationalism and destroying collectivism. It just so happens that not following Boris Johnson nearly at all times happens to be a good thing, and doing so is a good sell to pretty much everyone in Scotland, but there are superficial decisions made that to me just come across as petty.

There we are, that's my expected post slagging off the SNP out of the way, over to you lads.

On the other hand....

"More patriotism from Labour would wrong-foot the Tories who were really suffering before Boris took over from the identity-vandalism that was austerity. It's not something that's attractive to me as a leftwinger but I think people are searching for some sort of pride and identity that has been lost, "

It's all so confusing.

Also puts me in mind of this little gem from Lord (so many labour Lords aren't there) George Foulkes....

"The SNP are on a dangerous tack at the moment," he said. "What they are doing is trying to build up a situation in Scotland where the services are manifestly better than south of the Border in a number of areas."

A clearly bemused MacKay responded with the obvious question: "Is this such a bad thing?"

"No," replied George Lord, "but they are doing it deliberately."

[jamiefairlie]

I was born in Scotland, in one of Lanarkshire's beautiful post-industrial clachans. Forty bloody years ago *weeps*

I was born in Scotland, in one of Lanarkshire's beautiful post-industrial clachans. Fifty Three bloody years ago *Sobs*

[Sebastian Cobb]

Bit unfair to suggest the SNP's decision making is bourne out of just doing the opposite of Johnson; they've been beating governments south of the border quite some time now. For the slower members of the class they demonstrated this in order to gain wider appeal and support for independence. Such a clever ruse, this 'displaying competency' lark! Dunno how they get away with it!

[Sebastian Cobb]

By the way it looks like the split on independence is mostly covered by Tory/SNP lines. Do we think Starmzy will play this well or meekly side with the tories and the establishment demonstrating they haven't learned a fucking thing since they lost support during the last indie ref?



Anyway, back to Covid I think Sturgeon appears to be doing a better job, relaxing things more carefully and not prioritising cunts that own high street shops.

[GMTV]

Stay alert.....

Stay SAFE

[Head Gardener]

I was born in Govan so I win the Scottish Top Trumps.

does being born in Carlisle but moving to Scotland with a Scottish wife count as a strong hand?

[Danger Man]

does being born in Carlisle but moving to Scotland with a Scottish wife count as a strong hand?

Scotland is unusual in being a country where citizenship is decided entirely by accent. If you can do a Scottish accent you'll be fine.

(And if you can't do one just tell people you're from Edinburgh)

[jamiefairlie]

Scotland is unusual in being a country where citizenship is decided entirely by accent. If you can do a Scottish accent you'll be fine.

(And if you can't do one just tell people you're from Edinburgh)

True and it's on a sliding scale the further away you get from the home counties, so Johnson is 0% Scottish and Jimmy Nail is 90%

[Rizla]

I was born in the very village where the FUCKING SALTIRE ITSELF was invented so I reckon I'm the most Scottish "cunt" here thanks. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Athelstaneford

I'm "pure scunnered" with politics here, as I've stated before. There's a new breed of dismal centrist pro Indy types sucking all the air out of the room and nothing of the spirit of '14 that saw the left get on board with the SNP, just a bunch of cunts(like Pete Wishart) living it up down Westminster thinking they'll get to be untouchable defacto opposition for eternity. It's utterly fucked.

[jamiefairlie]

I was born in the very village where the FUCKING SALTIRE ITSELF was invented so I reckon I'm the most Scottish "cunt" here thanks. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Athelstaneford

I'm "pure scunnered" with politics here, as I've stated before. There's a new breed of dismal centrist pro Indy types sucking all the air out of the room and nothing of the spirit of '14 that saw the left get on board with the SNP, just a bunch of cunts(like Pete Wishart) living it up down Westminster thinking they'll get to be untouchable defacto opposition for eternity. It's utterly fucked.

Oh I agree totally. We've still to see the Salmond fall out that will expose some particularly unpleasant little goings on in SNP central land. There's a cabal that's taken hold the needs to cleared out if we're ever going to move on iref2. Lesley Evans should be the first to go.

[dissolute ocelot]

I'm guessing Sturgeon is very embarrassed about early days of COVID when Boris was very slow in taking action, and the Scottish government were just following England lemming-like. Hence the excess of caution more recently. Plus, appearing more competent than Boris is a no-brainer.

It's interesting that she now seems to have decided to reverse the caution and rush after England towards a Second Wave. Maybe it was politically or financially untenable to continue a lockdown. Maybe everything will be ok. What happens in public health terms will largely be determined by luck because that's how diseases work (Scotland's figures would be significantly better if Nike didn't have a Corona party in Edinburgh at the start of March; things like weather are crucial). But being as the Scottish Tories and Labour (in Scotland or England) are failing to make any discernible public health arguments, the political consequences to the SNP are likely to be minimal (other than some dead NO voters).

The Scottish Government is now asking for more borrowing powers (it currently has very limited abilities), and recovering is likely to require heavy-duty government action, so maybe this'll lead to greater powers over business and finances for the Scottish government. Or maybe it won't. But even a catastrophic recession will strengthen the SNP's hand.

[dissolute ocelot]

I was born in the very village where the FUCKING SALTIRE ITSELF was invented so I reckon I'm the most Scottish "cunt" here thanks. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Athelstaneford

I'm "pure scunnered" with politics here, as I've stated before. There's a new breed of dismal centrist pro Indy types sucking all the air out of the room and nothing of the spirit of '14 that saw the left get on board with the SNP, just a bunch of cunts(like Pete Wishart) living it up down Westminster thinking they'll get to be untouchable defacto opposition for eternity. It's utterly fucked.

I think independence is more likely to happen by accident, if Boris decides a referendum would be fun (if he fears for his Westminster majority and says fuck the Scots, or the SNP descend into infighting and he decides this is the time to put independence to bed), than if the SNP construct a sensible plan for independence, meeting all the EU's spending criteria and gaining approval from leading economists, and everybody nods agreement. I'm not sure how the SNP would feel about an independence campaign that side-lined them, especially if it saw a resurgent pro-Indy radical left, but there's not much they can do about it.

[Sebastian Cobb]

There's an article from the New Scientist that basically concludes Scotland is having fewer deaths because it's not being run by Boris Johnson.

https://www.newscientist.com/article/2247462-scotland-could-eliminate-the-coronavirus-if-it-werent-for-england/#ixzz6QsrrG0Qo

"but they're doing it deliberately!"

[bgmnts]

Fucksake.

Wales will be utterly, utterly fucked.

[Zetetic]

Contact tracing seems to be functioning here, at least, bgmnts. The factory outbreaks are being contained relatively well, as far as we can tell.

It's worth noting that our positive-test numbers look as high as they do, in part because England has been disappearing vast numbers of theirs (for reasons that no-one seems to be able to explain yet).

But the end of furloughing is coming, at Westminister's discretion, and I'm not sure any of the devolved governments can hold lockdown in the face of that.

[Dr Trouser]

A very niche view, but seeing first hand the Scot Gov response to the collapse of the aerospace industry and the massive job losses coming has been very positive, especially compared with U.K. gov headless chicken approach.

The whole 'are we' 'aren't we' approach to returning to school has been a pain though.

For thread context; wife was born in Knightswood and I was born in Splott, so our kids are fucked.

[GMTV]

There's an article from the New Scientist that basically concludes Scotland is having fewer deaths because it's not being run by Boris Johnson.

https://www.newscientist.com/article/2247462-scotland-could-eliminate-the-coronavirus-if-it-werent-for-england/#ixzz6QsrrG0Qo

"but they're doing it deliberately!"

It's England's virus

[Blinder Data]

Oh I agree totally. We've still to see the Salmond fall out that will expose some particularly unpleasant little goings on in SNP central land. There's a cabal that's taken hold the needs to cleared out if we're ever going to move on iref2. Lesley Evans should be the first to go.

Eh? She's a civil servant. Her departure won't, or rather shouldn't, affect goings on in the SNP at all.

[jamiefairlie]

Eh? She's a civil servant. Her departure won't, or rather shouldn't, affect goings on in the SNP at all.

Shouldn't but will. She should have gone when she cost the Scottish government (not SNP) half a million over the first Salmond investigation. When the truth comes out over the failed criminal court case, it will prove her to be at the centre of events there too.

[homesickalien]

Living in Wales only a few miles from the border I'm very interested to see what happens when travel restrictions are finally relaxed. 

I do wonder though how much difference people travelling makes to the spread of the virus.

At the moment millions of people are travelling in Wales, Scotland and all over the UK five or more days a week for work.

Drivers are touching petrol pumps, their vehicles are breaking down which requires road recovery, people are shopping in motorway services etc

Yet the general trend of Coronoavirus in the UK is still going down (I'm assuming this is generally the case?)

What difference will allowing people to travel an extra day or two of the week make in Wales and Scotland if most people will be doing this for leisure trips to spend the time outdoors where the virus doesn't transmit so well?

Is it not so much how much people travel but their behaviour when they get to the destination? (i.e social distancing, frequent hand washing etc?)