By Professor John Robertson, OBA
In the National today:
Mark Drakeford: Tories’ ‘suspicion of the Scots’ hindered UK in Covid THERE was an “inherent suspicion” in the way the UK government dealt with its devolved counterparts during the Covid pandemic because they were “worried about the Scots,” the former first minister of Wales has said.
The above table is summarised by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation on page 100 of UK Poverty 2023 published on 26 January 2023, as:
Scotland has the lowest mortality rate per 100,000 people for every degree of deprivation across the UK [p100]
https://www.jrf.org.uk/uk-poverty-2023-the-essential-guide-to-understanding-poverty-in-the-uk
That the above variation was due to the actions of the devolved government in Scotland was confirmed, at the Scottish Covid Inquiry in February 2024, by Professor Thomas Hale – Associate Professor in Global Public Policy, Blavatnik School of Government; Fellow of St Antony’s College, Oxford, when he made this statement:
The last two paragraphs are of particular significance.
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Talking-up Scotland 'Albatraz' 
Well done and i thank you so much Nicola Sturgeon , you did a magnificent job talking us through covid day in day out for three years or so , it made us safer it made us feel safer i listened to you and your team on twitter at every opportunity and know many many others who did likewise even my sister and her friends in Calgary Canada watched and listened to you on twitter.It must have been tiring .
P.S. If you could do the same thing for Scottish independence i would be ever so grateful but if you are tired of being in the public eye i understand.
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Could we have done things better in Scotland? Yes, but considering no-one knew at the time what better was, we tried not to do it badly. Could more lives have been saved in Scotland? Yes, probably; hindsight is a wonderful thing. Could more lives have been lost if we’d got it really wrong or simply followed Boris Johnson’s plan? We know this for sure.
I am glad I did not have to make those life or death decisions. I am simply not brave enough. Love and respect to those who had to.
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Had the English government not actually BLOCKED Scotland in accessing the vaccine at the early stages of the pandemic and IF the English government had not attempted to undermine the Scottish governments’ attempts to put safety of their people first especially those in care homes, and if the EngGov had worked WITH the Scottish government rather than against them, then yes, things could have been done a whole lot better.
The BritNat English state hates Nicola Sturgeon for all of the excellent work she did for Scotland as FM, especially during the damn pandemic.
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There is an honesty with Mark Drakeford that is not normally associated , as a trait, with any Labour politician.
Unfortunately it is the kind of honesty that the media here will choose to ignore as they prefer their Labour politicians to be those who attack rather than defend both Scotland and the Scottish government.
Liz S
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Stand back as the kudos flood in from the MSM , the BBC , the Westminster Government , the Scottish Unionist parties for the excellent response of the Scottish Government to the Covid Emergency ……waiting …still waiting ….
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Any reasonable person knew what the FM did at the time was necessary.
Lots of revisionists in the Scottish parliament and MSM.
If I hear another anti-SNP voice claim that lockdown and all the measures taken were over the top, I think I’ll swing for them.
The no-nothing/ill-informed have too much influence in deciding how to write the history of COVID.
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“The last two paragraphs are of particular significance”
I’d argue that the final sentence of the last paragraph is of more significance – confirming, as it does, that Scotland will be better off managing its own affairs.
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Professor Thomas Hale’s diplomacy aside, it was Tory politics which did the damage leading up to the pandemic, then caused even more damage under ‘bloody stupid Johnson’, his cronies, and attached at the hip media including James Cook leading BBC Scotland in a propaganda campaign Scots have never experienced since TV was invented prior to WW2.
What could have saved lives in the UK by example of what SG were doing was turned into a giant circus act by morons who held to the absurd notion the ‘playing fields of Eton’ were the font of all knowledge and experience – If that total arsehole Bowie was ‘out of his depth in a puddle’ to coin an infamous RN appraisal, Johnson struggled with a light fog even before the two short planks he borrowed were taken back
I still have a lot of time for Mark Drakeford and wish him well in retirement, a true Labour man through and through, as used to be the case in Scotland – Now Scots are stuck with “Read my lips” Sarwar and Tsunami Baille repeating “it’s just politics”.
“Sic a parcel of rogues” can still be found beyond the anglicised versions…
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The transcripts of evidence to the UK Covid 19 Inquiry are a rich source of ‘gems’!
From transcript of evidence given (March 13, 2024) to the UK Covid-19 Inquiry (Module 2B) by Mark Drakeford (https://covid19.public-inquiry.uk/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/13200157/C-19-Inquiry-13-March-2024-Module-2B-Day-11.pdf ):
‘I should say, my Lady, that I had the highest regard for the First Minister of Scotland and the First Minister and deputy First Minister of Northern Ireland. They were never anything but collegiate people, they took phone calls, they were involved in discussions. I had a very high regard for them all.
“The UK Government was always anxious about their interactions with the First Minister of Scotland, because, you know, she did have a different underlying ambition for the future of Scotland and that coloured their attitude towards her. She’s also a formidable politician and UK ministers were afraid of her, and would rather not have been engaged in a confrontational dialogue with her. That wasn’t true of the Prime Minister, he was happy to talk to anybody, and I don’t think he avoided discussions for that reason, he avoided them because he did not want to give the impression that the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom was somehow on a par with first ministers of other nations. It was the optics that he objected to,”
And on the. Johnson government’s approach to communicating with the public:
“I’m doing my best not, you know, only — not to sound as cross as I felt at the time, perhaps, but in that COBR meeting we have a very direct rehearsal with the Prime Minister of the need for him to be clear in a press conference — which he’s told us he’s about to have, so we know the decision’s made, because he’s got a press conference lined up to announce it — in that press conference he must make it clear that what he is about to say does not apply in Scotland or Wales or Northern Ireland. And he gives assurances in the COBR meeting that he will do his very best to make sure that he does that.
“He then heads to the cameras and he provides a script in front of the cameras in which the only time he refers to Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland is when he says early in the press conference “As Prime Minister of Scotland, England, Wales and Northern Ireland”. It is a very clear indication to people that what he’s about to say applies to the whole of the United Kingdom, and he never once says that that is not the case.”
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