ALISTER Jack, the Scottish Secretary, last week insisted that Scotland should emerge from the lockdown in “lockstep” with the rest of the United Kingdom.
He insisted: “If we can present a simple, clear, united message, it will be much more effective. The more we feel we are in this together, the more we will pull together; to stay at home, protect the NHS and save lives.”
The last 24 hours have not, by any stretch of the imagination, been simple, clear and united.
Indeed, the UK Government’s core slogan of stay at home has been ditched in England with the less clear one of ‘stay alert’.
As genuine concerns were raised about people, who cannot work from home, being “actively encouraged” to return to their workplace, Labour’s Keir Starmer demanded clarity amid the confusion.
Nicola Sturgeon and her SNP colleagues have not disguised their public contempt for Boris Johnson’s change of tack on messaging.
Last week, the First Minister warned that such a move would be a “potentially catastrophic mistake” ie it could cost lives and to underline her disdain for the Prime Minister’s amended approach, she arranged to have emblazoned on the backdrop for her daily press conference the slogan ‘stay at home’. The political messaging was at least simple and clear if not united.
In a move that will do little to dispel the growing undercurrent of political unease, Jackson Carlaw, the Scottish Conservative leader, revealed he had written to Ms Sturgeon to gently demand the reasons for her “divergent approach” from the UK Government’s.
“The SNP Government now needs to set out exactly why this approach is different and what evidence it is based upon. We can’t simply have weeks go by where Nicola Sturgeon asserts a position without the detailed reasons for it being revealed,” insisted Mr Carlaw.
But as people north of the border were told the only restriction being eased was the ability to exercise twice a day instead of one, those south of it were promised a vision of a return to something akin to normality.
Picnics in the park, sunbathing, a round of golf, and then some shops being opened, children going back to school, and then, possibly by July, people having the ability to go to the hairdresser’s again, the cinema, the church and even, perhaps, the pub. All, of course, predicated on people in England and Wales observing strictly the social distancing rules.
In the foreword to the UK Government document, the Prime Minister, who also wears the hat as Minister for the Union, insisted coming through the coronavirus crisis would require that “we pull together as a United Kingdom”.
And he pointed out: “We will continue to work with the devolved administrations in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland to ensure these outcomes for everybody, wherever they live in the UK.”
Downing St was adamant that the much-lauded four-nation strategy was alive and kicking. Mr Johnson’s spokesman stressed that different parts of the UK could move at “different speeds” during the battle to defeat the coronavirus. This, he insisted, was what devolution was all about.
Indeed, the PM took up the theme with gusto at the daily Downing St press briefing, arguing that it was right to have both local, regional and national solutions.
He extolled the fact that different parts of the UK would take slightly different approaches to deal with the nature of the epidemic in their nation. “We respect and support that,” he said, later declaring: “When you look at the totality of the approach, the unity between us is far more significant than the differences.”
And he brushed off all the criticisms of the last 24 hours from his political opponents and claimed his ‘stay alert’ message was “absolutely the right message for our country,” so right, in fact, that even the French were now copying it.
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