Its been a while since I wrote a blog post because, to be honest, the current pandemic has put perspective on what is important at this moment in time, however, the recent events in the UK cannot really be ignored any longer, and, like many of you, I get the distinct feeling that pretty much every single decision of the last couple of weeks has been purely political – I guess you could say almost scripted.
My mind is buzzing with political observations of the past few weeks, and that will make this blog post difficult to articulate, so for that I apologise, hopefully you can still follow my actual ramblings here.
Firstly, back when the Covid situation started kicking off in China, responsible governments, such as New Zealand, would have implemented harsh restrictions immediately to prevent as many deaths as possible from occurring within their population. Not here though, in fact quite the contrary. It wasn’t long before we were in a position where the Prime Minister was actually advising people live on TV that they would lose loved ones but we just needed to take it on the chin. Low and behold, 2 months later, we have the highest death toll per million citizens in the world and some 60,000 are dead.
Now of course, as an ardent independence supporter, I don’t view the UK as my country, however, that doesn’t prevent me from feeling sad emotion towards those south of the border who have had to endure the utter incompetence of the UK Government first hand. We here in Scotland have been exceedingly fortunate, whether you like it or not, that Nicola Sturgeon has been leading us through this pandemic.
That of course doesn’t mean we haven’t had our fair share of death and sadness, but what I can say, and you may or may not agree, is that if Nicola was not in charge here, I fear that death toll would have been much higher.
As the pandemic evolved and took grip, the messages from all 4 nations was uniform, and in all intents and purposes, the spike did start to level off. That doesn’t detract from the fact that the spike was far higher than it needed to be. Then of course, the poor planning, given that we knew about the pandemic months before it arrived here meant that millions of front line workers were put at unnecessary risk because of the UK Governments utter failure to adequately plan stockpiles of PPE and bring in the lock down much quicker.
Now in Scotland, the recent conversation has been about how a few delegates attended a Nike conference in Edinburgh. Now there may be an issue here with this conference, I am not saying there isn’t, however, the BBC and media in Scotland have really gone full pelt in that story whilst ignoring the Cheltenham fiasco with 250,000 people, or the concert in Aberdeen with 12,000 people, or the Madrid fans in Liverpool, or the thousands of weekly flights landing without checks on arrivals. The Nike story is thus purely political in nature because it implies a “cover-up”, which makes people think “dis-trust”.
How can I be sure? Well the IPSOS Mori pol showing support for Nicola in Scotland being at 83% and the Scottish Government at 79%, with the UK Government at about 35% and the Prime Minister at 30%. Even my ardent Conservative father has told me on three separate occasions how well she is doing. That in itself is enough for me to take a pause and think, maybe there is a ground swell of change in Scotland, and I suspect the UK Government knows it.
The UK Government are in a bad situation just now. This pandemic is affecting their core vote disproportionately, and with that, those voters will look to a leader who is most consistent and effective at protecting them. In this case it is Nicola, so the only option is to utilise political stunts to reduce her “appeal” towards them. Nike is a good example of that.
On top of this we are starting to see calls from, again the BBC, about the “inevitable investigation into Care Home deaths in Scotland” that the public will demand answers too – again about making the public think there is some sort of “cover-up” and plant distrust.
This is another example of a manufactured and overly extreme headline designed to undermine the First Minister and plant public notations on ineffective political management in Scotland even if that ineffective management doesn’t exist. It is a control technique and its been occurring in Scotland for many years, particularly since 2014.
Furthermore, I see today that the Under Secretary of State for Scotland has resigned in protest at the PMs most senior advisor breaching Lockdown rules whilst we all must abide by them. Normally I would congratulate said person for the “back bone” but that’s not really what i suspect it is though.
Firstly, why is it that a UK minister, and a Scottish one at that feels obliged to resign when the most obvious, and probably the most effective person at garnishing and solidifying support for Conservatives in Scotland on a resignation ticket would be Jackson Carlaw. Why has he not resigned, in fact, why has he not been bashing away on his Twitter keyboard demanding the PM advisor resigned as he was when the Scottish CMO breached lockdown rules? (hint, bashing the Scottish CMO created an element of distrust – he cant be doing that towards the PM can he?). But surely, if you were actually passionate about this it wouldn’t matter what political stance you took, you’d be condemning everyone who was breaching the rules. I suspect he has remained silent, and in line with most, if not all, other “Scottish” Tories is because all of this is political – and that includes the resignation of a low level UK minister in Scotland that 90% of the UK population have no idea who he is, nor do they care because he is a UK minister for Scotland (which keeps the shreds of trust in the PM in England in tact). Can you see the Jigsaw of “trust” coming together yet?
Furthermore, why has it taken a Scottish UK Minister to resign and not one from anywhere else?
Again, its purely a hunch, but it ties nicely into the broader UK population mindset that Scotland and England are different, and that difference, in time, is going to cause problems for the wider UK population and Government (and they know it). It wont cause problems with the vast majority in Scotland, however, there is a hard core group here who want us to follow England and get kids back to school and the economy moving again, and they will argue for this, even when faced with a second spike just because they hate “wee nippy”.
That’s the extent of how brainwashed so many in Scotland are, and that brainwashed, manufactured division is creaking at the seems, and the political nature of recent media stunts will further make it crack…and that’s when it’ll break.
If the UK faces a second wave, which if recent reports from England are true, we would likely find ourselves in a position where the difference in management across the UK could be played on as a “cause” for the second spike and all the confusing message (see Dominic Cummings) making the forward management of any second spike difficult. This could very well lead to an actual “one country approach” by revoking the current powers the First Minister has to vary lockdown here and bring it all into London on the “scientific advise” that they receive. I’m sure you recall the calls for the First Minister to publish her scientific advise in making different choices in Scotland – another political cog in the political pandemic management gear. See where this might be going yet?
There is one thing that I do not doubt has occurred over the past 2 months and that is support for independence has grown – and likely significantly – and that is the biggest threat the establishment in London face. The Covid-19 situation, as dreadful as it is for all affected (me included) will be used as a political football by the UK Government and their associated propaganda outfit in the BBC to destabilise opinion in Scotland, but that must be managed slowly and carefully by them or the opposite affect will occur. That canny approach is underway, pay attention to it and continue doing what you are doing – call it out. Talk to friends and family, expose the lies and hypocrisy and allow the tipping point in support for independence to stay and solidify for the final push towards independence.
MacAlba 