The Scottish media’s covid double standards

Did Nicola Sturgeon get everything right during the Covid pandemic when she headed a devolved government limited powers at its disposal and she was faced with an anti-independence Scottish media that screamed she was politicising the pandemic in order to further the cause of independence whenever she sought to diverge from the line being taken by then prime minister Boris Johnson? No, of course she didn’t.

All the governments in the UK were facing an unprecedented crisis for which their leaders were neither politically nor personally prepared. Mistakes were bound to be made, and it was in retrospect only to be expected that it would be difficult for them to wrap their heads around the scale of the crisis about to befall the globe. That said, some of them rose to the challenge rather better than others. All the devolved governments and the Westminster government came in for criticism by the inquiry for their handling of the early months of the pandemic, but some came in for considerably more criticism than others.

It is difficult to avoid the suspicion that the inquiry, led by a Tory appointed peer, sought to spread blame as widely as possible in order to dilute and distract from the comprehensive failure of the British Government to fulfil its basic duty of keeping the public safe. The single most damning fact is that the mortality rate resulting from the decisions taken in each nation showed wide variation. The mortality rate was 3.9% in Scotland, 4.9% (25% worse) in Wales and 6.5% (almost twice as bad) in England.

These numbers represent the deaths of real human beings with lives, hopes and dreams, with friends and families, people whose lives were cut short. Nicola Sturgeon made mistakes, she has acknowledged that herself, but her leadership ensured that thousands of people are alive today in Scotland, people who would have died had Nicola Sturgeon listened to the Scottish Tories and the anti-independence media and obediently copied the British Government. You know that if these statistics had been the other way around, the Scottish media clamour for Nicola Sturgeon’s head on a plate would have been deafening. Yet there is no credit given to the former first minister in the Scottish media for her achievement.

There’s also a contradiction in the criticism which the inquiry made of Nicola Sturgeon. The UK Covid-19 Inquiry praised the former first minister as a “serious and diligent leader”, praise which has been quickly glossed over in Scottish media coverage this week, but said she “often excluded” some government ministers and advisers from key discussions. However, had she taken the time to consult more widely she’d have been castigated for not acting more promptly in the face of a pressing emergency and the headlines in the Scottish press this week would be “Sturgeon dithered while Scots died.”

This is why it is galling in the extreme to see that anti-independence Scottish media which hysterically attacked the Scottish Government when it diverged from Westminster’s callous and chaotic handling of the pandemic attempt to draw a moral equivalence between the failings of Nicola Sturgeon identified by the UK Covid Inquiry and the inquiry’s devastating condemnation of Boris Johnson and senior figures in his administration whom the inquiry blamed for the avoidable deaths of 23,000 people, about the same as the population of Arbroath. The former first minister was criticised for not sharing information with cabinet colleagues, the former prime minister was condemned for toxicity, chaos, complacency, lack of leadership, and a callous denial of the realities of the situation even after its gravity became apparent, failings which the inquiry found to be responsible for the deaths of 23,000 people, people who could otherwise have survived.

All government failures when dealing with a lethal pandemic which as we know know killed millions of people world wide are of course serious, but the criticisms levelled at Nicola Sturgeon and the Scottish Government are relatively mild in comparison with the blanket and comprehensive damnation of Boris Johnson and his callous disregard for the lives of British citizens. Johnson failed in the basic duty of a leader, keeping people safe, and his incompetence and lack of care were directly responsible for the unnecessary deaths of tens of thousands of human beings. This is not remotely similar to what Nicola Sturgeon has been accused of.

The anti-independence media in Scotland is nevertheless delighted to have a shiny new SNP bad bauble to play with, and they will milk the performative outrage as much as they possibly can. The usual British nationalist double standards are at play here, most revoltingly in how Boris Johnson is given a free pass by the Scottish media. This same media screamed red white and blue murder whenever the Scottish Government did things differently from Westminster, and that media is still trying to promote the idea that these divergences were motivated purely by a desire to make the case for independence. It’s now very quiet about how Johnson’s negligence led to the deaths of 23,000 people, deaths which would also have occurred in Scotland had the former first minister bowed to the intense pressure and criticisms from the anti-independence parties and their friends in the Scottish media and meekly followed Johnson’s lead. You won’t see any acknowledgement of that uncomfortable fact in the Scottish media this week.

It’s also interesting that the First Minister’s Covid briefings are claimed by the anti-independence media to have been a covert means of campaigning for independence, but we are led to believe that the covid briefings of the Westminster government are not to be thought of as a means of campaigning for continuing Westminster rule.

The truth is that Nicola Sturgeon gave up campaigning for independence during the pandemic and came in for considerable criticism from many sections of the broader independence movement for doing so. However that truth doesn’t suit the Scottish media narrative. Support for independence surged during the covid pandemic but that was because Scots could compare and contrast for themselves Sturgeon’s serious and diligent leadership with the toxicity, chaos, and callous incompetence emanating from Downing Street and realised that Westminster rule does not help to keep Scots safe but rather it puts us at risk and most importantly we learned that Scotland is perfectly capable of confronting a global crisis without Westminster’s tutelage, and moreover can make a far better job of it than Westminster. That’s the real lesson of the pandemic for Scotland.

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