SCOTS historian and TV host Neil Oliver has slammed Nicola Sturgeon's announcement of a new wave of Covid restrictions, saying her fantasy is to have control over people's lives while there is no chance of a second independence referendum any time soon.

The GB News presenter spoke out causing a new stir on social media after the First Minister tightened Covid rules again in Scotland as the number of cases of Omicron continued to surge.

He admitted he did not have the scientific background "or the medical nous" but then said lockdown and all the associated restrictions "haven't worked" and that government reaction to the crisis will be looked back on as the "mother and father of all public policy disasters".

But his take on the the effectiveness of restrictions was challenged by fellow GB News presenter Alastair Stewart.

More curbs on leisure and hospitality were introduced in Scotland on 27 December 27 following limits on large events which came into effect on December 26.

Christmas Day celebrations were allowed to take place as planned, although people were advised to limit socialising to three households around the festivities and take a lateral flow test before mixing with others.

On Monday the Scottish Government said that the number of Covid cases in Scotland rose over the festive period to a record level due to the Omicron variant.

On Christmas Day, the number of positive tests stood at 8,252, with a high of 11,030 on Boxing Day – the highest daily totals recorded in Scotland since the start of the pandemic.

However, the government said that with the longer turnaround time for test results due to demand on the service, the actual number of positive Covid cases may be even higher.

READ MORE: GB News's Neil Oliver in row over 'no comply' in wearing masks to beat Omicron Covid variant

While Nicola Sturgeon warned just over two weeks ago that Scotland is facing a "tsunami" of Omicron cases, with the variant likely to replace Delta as the dominant form of the virus within days, that has not yet translated itself into hospitalisations.

On Christmas Eve there were 536 Covid-19 patients in hospital -37 fewer than two weeks ago and a drop of four on the previous day. This time last year there were getting on for double that number - 1008.

Mr Oliver who has previously branded lockdown "the biggest mistake in world history" said the Scottish restrictions were going to further cripple business but saved his ire for the First Minister's response.

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"I remain convinced as I have been almost from the beginning that this is a level of power over people's lives that Nicola Sturgeon would not have acquired any other way and that now that she has it tucked under her belt she's resolutely determined to wring every last drop out of that unnecessary, ill gained power over people's lives," he told Alastair Stewart.

"It surprises me not a jot that she's done this but it will be a disaster for businesses. It's a further discouragement, it casts a further pall of depression over the sectors that so needed a boost. You know, [finance secretary] Kate Forbes was talking about this being the best thing to protect us. The best thing for business in Scotland as elsewhere is for the government to get out of businesses' faces and let businesses conduct business and try and recover some of the financial losses that they have had to absorb over the last 20-odd months."

He said that at least in England in the short term, the government seemed to have understood that restrictions were "heaping misery on misery" but he said in Scotland, in Wales and Northern Ireland, the governments are still "up in the faces of business, and that is to the detriment of all".

On Boxing Day, it emerged that Boris Johnson will not introduce further Covid restrictions in England before 2022, giving mass events the go-ahead and leaving nightclubs open for New Year’s Eve – in contrast with all other UK nations.

Scientists criticised the decision, which came as England recorded its highest number of Covid infections. They said it was the moment of “the greatest divergence between scientific advice and legislation” seen since the start of the pandemic.

READ MORE: What lockdown critic Neil Oliver said after emerging from Covid self-isolation

The announcement came after advisers told the Prime Minister that significant NHS pressures were coming from staff absences rather than overcrowded intensive care units. Across the UK on December 22, there were 8,240 in hospital due to Covid - that's over a thousands more than the 7,184 in wards more than two weeks ago. On the same day last year there were 21,488, over two-and-a-half times as many.

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Mr Oliver, the archaeologist and author who came out of mandatory quarantine on November 14 after catching Covid said: "I don't accept that there's a scientific or a medical justification for continuing to apply these restrictions. I simply don't.

"I've already said with a caveat that I don't have the medical or the scientific background, but I think it's it's fairly evident that lockdown, and I'm using that as an umbrella term for all of the restrictions from that lucky bag of miseries that's  doled out to the people over the last 20-odd months. They haven't worked. They have not done anything. They haven't reduced the spread. They haven't reduced the number of people contracting Covid in any of its variants. You know, these restrictions are just disastrous, they are just heaping misery on misery."

His latest commentary came in conversation with Alastair Stewart who disagreed that the restrictions had not been beneficial and resulted in drops in hospitalisations and deaths.

He said: "The statistics are there for all to see, Neil".

But Mr Oliver believed the roll out of vaccinations came with the natural progression from winter into spring and into summer when "you would expect" the number of people who were ill or hospitalised to decline anyway.

"As we come into this winter and approaching this Christmas, you know, lo and behold, you know, like a gift to those politicians obsessed with power, they found somewhere this Omicron variant and managed to get terribly excited and upset about it, when much of the scientific opinion coming out of South Africa and elsewhere were saying that they've had this and seen this for longer than you, and we think it's mild," he said.

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"But there was a concerted attempt made to see Omicron only as a bad thing. Because yet again there was this general determination to hang the Sword of Damocles over everybody's heads.

"When all is said and done and we look back on this from whatever point in the future at what happened [we will see] what was done will have been the mother and father of all public policy disasters. Lockdown and all its little wizards will be seen to have done nothing but harm."

The Renfrewshire-born 54-year-old who has previously stated that he and his wife will not let their three teenage children take the Covid vaccine believed that the lack of realistic possibility of a second independence referendum was underscoring the way Nicola Sturgeon was reacting to the crisis.

He said:"This is the fantasy that she's got at the moment. Someone like Nicola Sturgeon dreams of having control over people's lives. She calls herself chief mammy, you know, it's a fantasy for her to have people looking to her for permission to go about their everyday lives."

The former National Trust for Scotland president who was seen as a divisive figure by some because of his pro-Union stance said: "The dream of independence for the SNP and the political supporters is the stuff of yesteryear. It's gone. It's not realistic. And it's partly for that reason that Nicola Sturgeon like Mark Drakeford in Wales, cannot bear to surrender, to hand over the power that she was granted, gifted on account of this unprecedented unexpected emergency."

READ MORE: 'Divisive' broadcaster Neil Oliver steps down as National Trust for Scotland president

The TV presenter, who is notorious amongst hardcore nationalists for describing the uncertainty caused by the prospect of a second referendum as a “cancerous presence” and describing Alex Salmond as a “round, wrecking ball of a man, shaped only to do damage” added: "You know, independence is not a realistic threat. I'm not worried about it. And I haven't been worried about it for some considerable time. That possibility is no more. I don't expect to talk meaningfully about the prospect of a referendum on independence for decades. If at all again, in my lifetime."

At the start of the month, support for Scottish independence rose to its highest level for a year, according to a new poll.

Backing for Yes was at 55% – up five points compared to the last Ipsos MORI poll just before the Holyrood election in May, the survey for STV finds.

Excluding undecideds, it suggested the result of the 2014 referendum may be reversed if another was held now.

That poll's result came just days after the First Minister told the SNP conference that the independence campaign would begin "in earnest" in Spring next year with a vote in 2023.

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