In the Times today, under the headline above, Kenny Farquharson writes a rambling piece arguing:
‘Working with Westminster may not suit the SNP’s selective internationalism, but coronavirus proves it is essential.’
I’d agree with that headline if he meant not self-isolating from the EU’s health security system. Even the Telegraph was prepared to let three academics assert the vital need to maintain access to it last week:
But he doesn’t mean that. He means the broad shoulders of Britain in the form of NHS England. Has he read anything? Does he mean that wounded system trailing, bloodied, behind NHS Scotland, part-privatised by New Labour, understaffed, under-performing and bouncing from crisis to crisis? Does he think their A&E departments, on average 20% worse and, in some inner-city areas, no better than third world, can help us out with a surge of infected patients? NHS Scotland is currently, quietly, doubling its intensive care capacity. I think we all know which way the help will have to flow. Does he think their over-crowded intensive care wards with fewer doctors and nurses per capita, than in Scotland, will be able to help NHS Scotland out? Again, we all know which way the flow of the sick will go. Does he think their hospitals just recovering from mass Norovirus outbreaks over the winter, due in part to outsourced cleaning, can help our hospitals where inhouse cleaning has meant that a tiny handful of infections is so remarkable that our MSM drool over them hungrily?
We must and we will help when it comes to it but, were we heartless, it would be the very time for self-isolation.
Talking-up Scotland 'Albatraz' 
A very rapid rush through the various beeb pages offers some interesting (and some puzzling) info re. Johnson’s budget impacts on Scotland. Links and snippets below;
The beeb politics page talks about a Scottish site being included in the Carbon Capture and Storage project – see below:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-51832634
An extra £640m for Scotland, £360m for Wales, and £210m for Northern Ireland.
Treasury to open new offices in Wales and Scotland and civil service hub in the North of England, employing 750 staff
£800m for two carbon capture and storage clusters, creating 6,000 new jobs in Teesside, Humberside, Merseyside and Scotland
Stamp duty surcharge for foreign buyers of UK properties to be levied at 2% from April 2021
The beeb science correspondent rather more equivocal regarding inclusion of a Scottish site in the CCS project – see below:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-51835950
Two carbon capture clusters will be funded for up to £800m in the north of England and possibly Scotland,
The beeb Scotland page identifies this info:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-51834627?intlink_from_url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/scotland/scotland_politics&link_location=live-reporting-story
Other spending commitments in the Budget which specifically affect Scotland include:
£1m promotional campaign to promote the Scottish food and drink sector
£10m over three years to help distilleries “go green”
Increase 4G coverage in Scotland from 42% to 74%
£5m for trials of 5G mobile networks in Scotland
Some of this info needs clarifying as bits seem to ‘overlap’ reserved and devolution settlement responsibilities.
Confess I’m interested (but puzzled) at the Treasury office being opened in Scotland (and Wales) – need to see more detail of what’s involved.
Beeb also describe a ‘UK’ special 2% stamp duty surcharge for ‘foreign’ nationals purchasing ‘UK’ properties – I was under impression that ‘stamp duty’ was devolution settlement territory (LBTT in Scotland) so maybe just beeb using ‘UK’ out of habit – need more info:
The food/drink promo spend of £!M sounds, on initial consideration like a direct win from the National’s fierce and focussed campaigning – so well done there.
The distilleries ‘going green’ funding – if coming from a ‘UK’ budget is fine by me – leaves more in Scottish budget for similar schemes in other industries – but sounds curious – more info required, methinks.
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Have new people been appointed to The Fraser of Allander recently? – The FoAI has produced several recent pieces being quite fierce towards Johnson’s Westminster Govt’s daft economic policies and have applied some wonderfully dry humour whilst doing so. Another good piece has appeared regarding the madness of the Johnson bridge/’Union’ Alister Jack tunnel proposal. Link and snippets below – worth a quick read of the full article if people have a spare minute:
https://fraserofallander.org/scottish-economy/whens-a-bridge-not-a-bridge-when-its-a-tunnel-apparently/
When’s a bridge not a bridge? When it’s a tunnel, apparently…
Fraser of Allander Institute – March 9, 2020
It is perhaps a sign of the times that political stories, which wouldn’t even have seen the light of day in the past, gain traction.
The latest is the proposal of a bridge (although we’re told that was a metaphor, and it may now be a tunnel that’s being proposed) to link Scotland and Northern Ireland.
This is the idea – and this is not an April Fool – to consider a 21-mile road link between Scotland and Northern Ireland over the Irish Sea.
Somewhere, engineers will be debating the technical challenges of building a bridge over deep water, or a tunnel across a difficult underwater terrain. Geographers will be working out the average windspeeds that traffic will be able to withstand. And munition experts will be discussing how to avoid Beaufort’s Dyke.
Finally, and one of the first things that economists are taught is to look at the ‘opportunity cost’ of a project. The opportunity cost isn’t the financial cost of building the bridge (estimated at least at £20bn), but the benefits that could be gained instead from spending that ~£20bn on other projects in Scotland (and Northern Ireland). £20bn would be equivalent to over 14 Queensferry Crossings (with some change left over to fix the problems of ice); 25 M74 extension equivalent road projects; or 400 large Cal Mac ferries (at the original price). £20bn could be far better spent.
So in short. It won’t deliver the economic boost some claim, it isn’t a priority, it would go to the wrong location, it wouldn’t be consistent with climate change objectives, and the money could be better spent on other things.
Apart from that, it’s a cracking idea.
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Mr Farquharson’s journalistic technique is transparently ‘shoddy’. He identifies a course of action (Scotland ‘self-isolating’) that no-one is suggesting either in reality or metaphorically – and which under no circumstances would be required except in extremis for public health reasons (cf. China or Italy). He then proclaims that this is not the time to do the very thing which only he has identified. How ‘clever’!
Is he unaware of how much co-operation takes place on public health protection between nation states both on an ongoing basis and in emergency situations? Or is this just another attempt to re-play the ‘too wee, too poor, too stupid’ to cope message? Desperate stuff!
Mr Farquharson refers to something he terms ‘selective internationalism’ – what does this mean? Let’s leave to one side the obvious flaw here, namely that most people in Scotland wish to remain within the EU – because they are, specifically, NOT self-isolating but rather ‘internationalist’. Let’s look instead at other practical demonstrations of ‘internationalism’ that many indy supporters aspire to for our newly independent nation state.
The Nordic Council of Ministers and the Nordic Council are the main forums for official Nordic co-operation, which involves Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, Sweden, the Faroe Islands, Greenland and Åland. These independent nation states co-operate on a wide range of public policy issues – both across their nation state boundaries and between countries which are within and outside the EU.
A quick look at the Nordic countries’ current areas of co-operation on health and social care policy and delivery shows how serious, sensible, progressive countries, including small countries, work together.
Source: https://www.norden.org/en/health-and-social-affairs-policies
Just some of the areas of Nordic co-operation include:
– Boosting co-operation on highly specialised treatments in the Nordic Region
– Establishing a Nordic network for rare diagnoses
– Increasing co-operation regarding measures to improve public health
– Increasing support for patient mobility in the Nordic Region – work to further increase patients’ right to treatment and care in another Nordic country
– Increasing the mandate for co-operation within the field of health preparedness
– Expanding Nordic pharmaceutical co-operation to boost cost-efficiency and improve safety- including the creation of a joint dispensary for uncommon drugs and increase co-operation on rare drugs; increase the exchange of information on purchasing agreements and applications for new drugs
– Establishing Nordic co-operation between national experts – in order to improve utilisation of the countries’ resources.
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KF never ceases to amaze…..Despite all appearances, Kenny lackd the critical skills to differentiate between finding solutions and cosying up to Westminster.
What I got from the article by Kenny Farquharson is not that we should ‘self-isolate’, but actually use Scottish NHS to support (bail out) the English Trusts which are poorer equipped, poorly staffed, poorly funded and poorly organised, with lower GP/capita and bed/capita ratios than Scotland
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