In the Scotsman yesterday, former Jack McConnell adviser and Labour councillor, Susan Dalgety, is allowed to hide as a journo to distort the facts, in an attempt to undermine the First Minister and the SNP, currently soaring in the polls.

Only yesterday, Murdo Fraser tweeted his concerns about the unfairness of such behaviour.

Two weeks ago Dalgety wrote a disgraceful personal and misogynistic attack on the FM: https://talkingupscotlandtwo.com/2020/07/04/former-jack-mcconnell-adviser-and-labour-councillor-allowed-to-hide-a-journo-to-insult-first-minister-and-women-in-politics/

Now she is back, given space to lie about Scotland’s coronavirus death rate and about just what the FM has actually said.

In a deeply confused or perhaps cynical piece referencing Kevin Hague, there are several flaws.

First, where has the FM said that the virus is ‘out of control’ in England? Despite the fact that the ONS data suggest around 1 700 cases per day in England compared to only around 9 in Scotland, I have heard her talk, in briefings, only of ‘higher levels of infection’ in other parts of the World and in the UK.

On death rates, which are of course less indicative of control than infection levels now, when it matters, no one denies that the level in Scotland cumulatively has been one of the highest.

Like Gordon Brewer and many others, Dalgety clings to the earlier death rate because with the current 7 day average rate now consistently well under 1 per day, they have nothing current to go on.

The higher rate in the early stages of the crisis was a consequence of Scotland’s adherence to the 4 Nations approach, dominated by SAGE, with the devolved nations marginalised in the decision-making process and unable legally to begin lock-down before the UK Government did.

Of course, commentators like Dalgety and Hague, would have raged against any attempts to diverge earlier as politicising a health crisis.