Scotland

What motivated the Scottish government to take a more cautious approach to lockdown? Deviations from the UK government's approach meant that those living north of the border often had to live with harsher restrictions compared to those in England, decisions that were widely assumed to be made on the basis of scientific advice. But now the Covid Inquiry has disclosed conversations that took place at the heart of government — and revealed how top academics were left confused by the SNP's strategy. Mark Woolhouse, professor of infectious disease epidemiology at Edinburgh University, told the inquiry on Wednesday that he ‘did not understand’ the Scottish government’s ‘very, very cautious’ pandemic strategy during the summer months of 2020.

Sometimes a politician says something that makes you wonder if they’re living on a different planet. This week it was Scottish First Minister Humza Yousaf. He said there is a dearth of political concern for the poor people of Gaza. It feels like ‘Palestinian blood is very cheap’, he said. It seems to me that it isn’t concern for Muslim life that motors the protesting classes – it’s contempt for Israel I’m sorry, what? There have been more public displays of sorrow for the people of Gaza than for any other people caught up in a war as far back as I can remember. Solidarity with Gazans is virtually mandatory at dinner parties across the land. Few wars have pricked the conscience of the middle classes as much as this one.

If you thought senior Conservatives giving evidence to the UK Covid inquiry in London was rough then you should watch the footage now emerging from Edinburgh, where the Inquiry's lawyers have moved to take evidence. It's a bloodbath. Former first minister Nicola Sturgeon and current first minister Humza Yousaf are yet to even take the stand. But already the sessions have revealed a Scottish SNP government embroiled in secrecy, cover-up and the politicisation of a deadly pandemic in the interests of furthering the cause of independence. The latest revelations are startling. On Friday morning, the inquiry established that Sturgeon and other senior Scottish government officials had deliberately deleted WhatsApp messages the inquiry wanted as evidence.

You know your brand is struggling when even the boss wants to ditch it. For it seems that hapless Humza Yousaf has 'done a Ratner' today by distancing himself from the increasingly-toxic SNP brand. With his party set to lose half their seats to Labour, the flailing First Minister has decided that now is the right time to freely confess that he has 'never really been comfortable' with the Scottish National Party’s name. In an interview with the BBC's Nick Robinson on his Political Thinking podcast, Yousaf admitted that he did not like the connotations of the word 'nationalist', suggesting that the 'national' in the SNP’s name could be 'misinterpreted'. Gosh, how could that ever happen to such a tolerant, inclusive movement?

The SNP’s much trumpeted policy of free university tuition allows 'radicals' to indulge their fantasies of Scotland as a fair and compassionate country. Nationalist politicians sell the scheme as a way of opening up higher education to those who might previously have been priced out of post-school study. The reality is that the wealthiest are the scheme's big winners: a higher proportion of children from better off backgrounds go on to university. Is the SNP now having a long overdue rethink? Appearing before Holyrood’s finance committee on Tuesday, deputy first minister and finance secretary Shona Robison said 1,200 spaces for Scottish students would not be funded next year. When Labour MSP Michael Marra pointed out that a proposed £28.

Bumping up politicians’ pay seldom goes down well, especially in times of economic hardship. But the news that members of the Scottish parliament are to receive a 6.7 per cent salary hike will not be greeted with much enthusiasm among taxpayers north of the border. The rise takes the annual pay of all 129 MSPs to £72,195 and comes after the method for calculating Holyrood salary increases was switched from the ONS annual survey of hours and earnings (ASHE) to the more generous average weekly earnings (AWE). A spokesperson for the Scottish parliament said the previous method 'has been increasingly out of sync with other wage inflation indices to the point that MSPs received 1.5 per cent last year when general inflation was running at 10 per cent'. The poor wee dears.

Few politicians had a better 2023 than Anas Sarwar. The Scottish Labour leader began last year with his party still in the doldrums, languishing behind a seemingly impregnable SNP led by a seemingly indefatigable Nicola Sturgeon. A resignation, a camper van, and an incompetent successor later, and that has all changed. Scottish Labour is now in the ascendency and looking towards the coming general election in not with its normal trepidation, but with newfound relish. That much, at least, was clear from Sarwar’s speech – notionally kickstarting the party’s general election campaign – earlier this week (MON).  This desire for change is Sarwar’s strongest suit As in the rest of the UK, Scottish Labour is not awash with substance or inundated with ideas.

It seems that Humza Yousaf is taking diversity seriously – though not as we know it. Scotland's First Minister has apparently welcomed the Christian fundamentalist former bus tycoon Brian Souter, regarded as a homophobe by the Scottish Greens, back into the SNP fold. Changed days.  The SNP needs all the help it can get with the business community in Scotland and Souter has been helping out schmoozing them, according to Politico. A freedom of information request revealed that Yousaf’s aides have been actively courting Scotland’s richest man following his sale of Stagecoach two years ago.  SNP donations have all but dried up in recent years and the party needs cash for the upcoming general election campaign.

Mhairi Black can clearly see which way the wind is blowing. 'I did always feel a wee bit uncomfortable,' the SNP's deputy leader at Westminster has said of the cult of personality around former first minister Nicola Sturgeon. 'We shouldn’t be relying on one face or one person,' Black told Times Radio, adding that she had always 'had issues' with the way Sturgeon ran the party, and that she 'didn’t miss her'. Isn't it funny that Black felt so uncomfortable about such things but has only spoken out now? Whatever Black thinks about Sturgeon, she was a clear supporter of her ex-boss's deeply bonkers and unpopular legislation that could have allowed men to invade women-only spaces and be placed in the women's prison estate, simply for deciding that they are women.

As she faced her final press conference of 2022 last Christmas, the first minister of Scotland seemed unassailable. Nicola Sturgeon had negotiated the Covid pandemic with consummate skill – at least in terms of presentation. Her personal popularity, while not what it was, remained unnaturally high for the leader of a party that had been in government for 15 years. The opposition parties posed no obvious threat to SNP hegemony. She had no internal rivals to worry about.   Political downfalls are rarely so precipitate or dramatic Yet two months later Nicola Sturgeon was history, the SNP leadership was in ruins and Police Scotland were preparing to arrest key SNP figures in an investigation into the misuse of party funds. Political downfalls are rarely so precipitate or dramatic.

It may be the the last First Minister’s Questions before Christmas, but no one in Scottish Parliament is in the festive spirit. After the SNP announced a winter budget that would make even Scrooge seem upbeat, it’s no surprise that hapless Humza got a grilling today. Douglas Ross appeared to be enjoying himself, with the Scottish Tory leader mocking a recent claim made by an SNP cabinet minister that ‘world leaders were lining up’ to get advice from the Scottish government. With 2023 being the year of the motorhome jokes, Ross continued mischievously: Now, it got me wondering: who is this that’s been calling for their advice? Has Justin Trudeau been on the phone looking for a camper van?

You can say one thing about Jim Callaghan’s Labour government of the 1970s. It certainly kept migration under control. Over the course of his government, Britain saw net migration of around minus 65,000. That had quite a lot to do with a top tax rate of 83 per cent. Whether Scotland’s new tax rates will actually raise any revenue is another matter But if Keir Starmer says he won’t return to punitive tax rates, the SNP is certainly giving Callaghan’s Chancellor Denis Healey a run for his money. The Scottish government has just announced a new rate of 45 per cent for earnings between £75,000 and £125,140. But in some circumstances, the marginal rate can rise to Healey-esque levels.

Today’s Scottish government budget was tax-rise heavy – to the dismay of both individual earners and businesses — in the name of public service support. But while finance secretary Shona Robison spoke of her government’s ‘values’ of equality, opportunity and community, as well as the importance of its ‘social contract with the people of Scotland’, she failed to acknowledge the state her country’s public services are in.  Robison mentioned the NHS over ten times throughout her speech, using it to justify the contents of today's budget. But Scotland’s health service is struggling more than ever; some hospitals are so congested that it is becoming the norm for dozens of patients to spend the night in corridors.