I’VE always thought the letters in The Herald were excellent, especially the ones that agree with me, so it’s no surprise that the collective wisdom of the letters page has come up with ways to ease the lockdown. Frustrated by “stay at home”? Confused by “stay alert”? Then how about the much more sensible “stay apart”?

It was Nick Kempe from Glasgow who came up with that particular slogan, but he’s not the only reader who’s been suggesting it’s time for change and raising sensible questions about the strategy of the Scottish Government. Questions such as: why can supermarkets stay open and their competitors can’t? Or: what’s to stop people sunbathing or hanging out in the park when the risk of transmission outdoors is so much lower? And: why on earth are golf courses and garden centres still closed?

These are all excellent questions, but it was Mr Kempe who came up with the neatest and cleverest solution. He quite rightly pointed out that “stay at home” was becoming just as confusing as “stay alert” – how, for example, does the Scottish Government’s stay-at-home advice fit with their latest guidance that it’s safe to go out for physical exercise more than once a day? Stay Apart, he suggested, would be a much better and clearer option.

“Stay Apart is applicable to all areas of life,” wrote Mr Kempe, “and would provide a sound framework for managing Covid-19 for the foreseeable future. It would enable Scotland to reopen its garden centres, as the Welsh Government has agreed, and could be used to determine what other workplaces could reopen safely. Such a framework would also provide a clear message to businesses about how to re-think their workplaces and how they might interact with the public in future.”

I agree with Mr Kempe and why on earth such a slogan hasn’t occurred to the media and comms people advising the UK and Scottish governments I have no idea. The business owners I’ve spoken to recently also think a Stay Apart message could work for them and that it could work right now. In some cases, it has to before they lose their livelihoods altogether.

I’m talking about people such as James McKelvey, who owns the Wanlockhead Inn high up in the Lowther Hills. It’s a fantastic, characterful pub – open log fire, chips as big as sailing ships, Elvis karaoke machine, everything you could possibly want really – but it also has lots of space indoors and plenty outside too in the beer garden.

Mr McKelvey told me just how badly he’d been hit by the shutdown – two months now with zero income with no end in sight – and he’s obviously aware that a balancing act is required and that people are ill and dying. But he’s having a crisis of his own – will his business survive? He also feels that he could now safely open, provided of course that the public was made aware that distancing was still in operation, which is where the stay apart slogan comes in.

The McIndoe family, who own and run the Mill Garden Centre in Armadale, feel pretty much the same way. They’ve been following the coverage of the crisis in The Herald and a major frustration for them is that big businesses like supermarkets and B&Q are open and selling plants and compost, etc, while horticultural businesses like theirs have been forced to stay shut. They’ve also noticed a big difference in the levels of frustration among their customers in the last two weeks. People are desperate for some small change to lockdown.

Again, the answer is “stay apart”. The Mill Garden Centre is mainly based outdoors and, once open, the staff there would reinforce the stay-apart message by cleaning the handles of the trolleys, limiting the number of customers in the garden centre at any one time, using a one-way system and clearly marking safe distances on the ground. The McIndoe family also make the good point that there’s been a push by government towards claiming financial support rather than supporting businesses to operate safely.

The “stay apart” message would allow businesses to do that and to do it right now. The McIndoe family say both the Scottish and UK governments have given large and powerful businesses favourable treatment and that this has caused inconsistency and confusion – why is B&Q open but not businesses like the Mill Garden Centre? The push and pull between “stay at home” and “stay alert” is also making the situation worse.

The answer, obviously, is to make it simpler. Make it clearer. Make it “stay apart”. And if you’re a government minster or advisor, I urge you, in future, to listen to the wisdom of The Herald letters page.

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