I was rather alarmed last week that three people independently said to me that Jason Leitch and co appear to have reverted to their March 2020 position of trying to achieve herd immunity through mass infection. I’ve long since stopped watching the briefings, so I wasn’t entirely sure what this referred to, but unfortunately it’s become clearer and clearer over the last 48 hours or so. Boris Johnson has decided to end the fight against the virus on an arbitrary date that is only a fortnight away. “If not now, when?” he asks fatuously – the obvious answer to that question being when vaccine coverage is as comprehensive as it can possibly be, which is far from being the case at this stage. I presume what this is really about is that we’re now in summer, and any scientific advice to wait until the autumn must be disregarded because the cretins on GB News and in the Daily Mail will be whingeing about missing out on their month in Santorini.
Now is the time to partition Plague Island
It also should be a statement of the blindingly obvious that even when it’s safe enough to remove the bulk of restrictions, common sense, non-onerous rules like the mandatory wearing of masks on public transport and in shops should remain in place for as long as the virus is in wide circulation. That actually enhances personal freedom because it allows people to travel and to do normal things in relative safety. But no, apparently the danger of Neil Oliver’s nose developing a slight itch is more important than public health, and Johnson has decreed that masks can go as well.
As per usual, what appears to be happening in Scotland is that we’re just going along with whatever the London strategy is, with a slight delay and with a few modifications to give us the illusion of being more careful. That would explain the change of mood music from Leitch, because sooner or later he’d need a narrative to justify removing restrictions while the virus is ripping through the population.
One thing I would say is that the SNP leadership can’t have it both ways on this. Their stated reason for indefinitely delaying the calling of an independence referendum is that we’re in the middle of a public health emergency and their sole focus has to be on that. But if we’re about to fall into line with Johnson’s “to hell with it” approach by getting everything back to normal from mid-August onwards, there’s no longer any excuse for failing to use the mandate for an indyref as a matter of urgency.
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