FOR viewers of a certain vintage, television on Saturday nights and Sunday mornings followed a regular pattern. After the sports results on Saturday came dinner, some Generation Game-style family viewing, maybe a film, and off to bed. On Sundays it was repeats, cartoons, undemanding drama.
Weekends were about relaxation, switching on to switch off.
Today, viewers have to steel themselves before wielding the remote control lest they are greeted by the sight of a Prime Minister at a podium. As a general rule, no good news ever came from these events.
So it was on Saturday, with Boris Johnson announcing the reintroduction of some restrictions in England following the discovery of the Omicron variant.
If Saturday was about getting the headlines right, the Sunday politics shows were for adding detail. Hence the reappearance of Sajid Javid, England’s Health Secretary, for the second week in a row. Was it only seven days ago that the same Minister was in the same place talking about high speed rail links? Oh, happier days.
Therein lay the problem for government, one that became apparent as Sunday wore on. How could they sound the alarm about this new variant without seeming alarmist? How could they march a weary public up the hill one more time when it would be weeks before the full facts about Omicron were known?
Andrew Marr called it, correctly, a “jittery morning”. His show had set up shop in Glasgow again and, fittingly, Scottish journalists – Helen McArdle, The Herald’s health editor, and Catherine Salmond, the editor of Scotland on Sunday – had been invited to review the papers. Forgive the bias, but McArdle was a perfect choice. On a day when steady, well-informed commentary was essential, she told viewers what was known about Omicron and, just as importantly, what was yet to be established.
Marr had not wasted a minute of the morning, previously interviewing the South African doctor who first spotted the variant (and said the symptoms thus far had been mild), and the medical director of Moderna, about when a new booster might be expected (early 2022).
Otherwise, it was left to politicians to get the message across, but which message? Mr Javid’s first stop was Sky News’s Trevor Phillips on Sunday.
READ MORE: Travel restrictions warning
Phillips wondered if the public would comply with reimposed rules, and he had a good statistic to illustrate his case. Of all the millions of London Underground journeys in the last few months, only 108 people had been removed from trains and stations for not wearing masks.
The Minister stuck to the line that the government’s response was “proportionate and balanced”, though he did go slightly overboard when asked if Christmas was safe. “It’s going to be a great Christmas,” he declared.
Marr’s closing interview was with Scotland’s First Minister. Any other week the focus might have been on the party’s conference that weekend, and the predictable pressure on Nicola Sturgeon to name the date for another independence referendum.
Marr asked about indyref2 and whether the new variant would lead to a further delay in holding it. “I don’t know the answer to that question right now,” said Ms Sturgeon. The same applied to closing the border with England and reintroducing other restrictions, such as stopping gatherings indoors. Ms Sturgeon was not for budging when it came to leaving options open.
She is due to give her leader’s speech to the party today. Those hoping for firmer answers, particularly on a date for indyref2, look likely to be disappointed.
“If I stood up in front of my party and told them that I, alone in the world, could see when this Covid pandemic was going to end, then people would look at me a bit askance. I’m a politician but I’m a politician who tries to be as straight as I can with people,” she said.
The previous day, John Swinney, Deputy First Minister, had launched a furious attack on the UK government in his speech. But there was no such anger from the First Minister, or from the party’s Westminster leader, Ian Blackford, interviewed later by Martin Geissler on The Sunday Show. It was a day to be diplomatic.
READ MORE: Latest stats on Covid deaths and case numbers
Geissler started the show by saying what a horrible morning it was outside. Yet as we had seen through the windows during Marr, the city was bathed in sunshine. The blizzard Geissler had driven through was gone. Stormy weather, warnings of what may lie ahead, followed by relief when everything turns out okay. As a metaphor for the arrival of Omicron it would do.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereLast Updated:
Report this comment Cancel