Covid coverage in the media doubled me up this morning. I get newspapers from my Dad who tends to finish with them by 10am and he gives me the option to recycle them. Normally I put them straight out but this week I gathered them up to laugh at the covid coverage for conflicting content.
It couldn't have been quicker when Michael Glackin in the Sunday Times covering the Scottish Scene, slagged off the Scottish Government for not moving Edinburgh to tier 2 in its tottering tier system. I agree the SG have no idea when it comes to numbering, clearly some marketing professional explained its like a lift and we start at ground zero but that's another story, reverse colonialism. The idea that Edinburgh move to tier 2 and help business sounded farcical to me on the ground. Why open pubs for 2 weeks in the run up to Christmas. Really, I asked myself, why. Logistically its a challenge and if its pulled after a fortnight its still loss making.
So today's Scotsman leading story has Rachel Mackie talking about tougher restrictions and the capital being a hotspot.
We've known for a long time that this is a highly fluid situation owing to many factors. The single most important factor is most politicians throughout the world realise that their countries are exposed when riots start outside their hospitals owing to lack of capacity due to scarcity of resource. With this jenga block in place most of the irrational action is explained. FEAR is a driver that politicians understand but it rarely improves their acumen. Our job, as citizens, during a pandemic, is to guide them to the answer.
On the streets in the run up to the Scottish Election we need to push that snowball up the hill for them. While Covid continues my latest walk in from Eskbank to Cameron Toll left me frustrated and not just with the destruction of the bus lanes as my mind drifted on the news.
Commentators have their jobs to do but it does surprise when two unionist papers should be so far off the page from each other, well, not for long as the surprise gave way to more laughter for the sad stato.
As people prepare to go home for Christmas there is much more fluidity in the numbers getting tested. There is still freedom of movement and although only 40 miles apart, Edinburgh and Glasgow, can hear their residents voices in each others cities at this time of year and it's normal. While people are asked not to travel there's clearly a few who do, and this is why I laugh.
Spikes of Covid can mean a rise of 20 cases per 100,000. We've all seen the ads ,so for those who cant do (1*3) cubed, this can be as simple as 1 person carrying covid getting on a bus and three people getting off that bus with it. As they head of to the Dome, the shops or just back to their flat another 9 get it.
We know this story and we know why its a pandemic, remember the slogan "for the many not the few", well, Covid-19 represents how tax should work. "From the Few to the Many", would be my slogan, but it has too many words.
I do wish our journalists would stop trying to sensationalise both sides of the argument, because a fluid pandemic is not an argument. It is a war of attrition and anyone who had relatives in the 1914 football match on Christmas day will know how long it can take for a war of attrition to conclude.
If the media wants to make a contribution they should assist the public. My take is Scotland's biggest mistake was the care home cull, a massacre I commented on back in April. The catastrophic mistakes of the UK government's Lions led by Donkeys approach does not need me to add to the list, although I'm sure I've made a few observations in my gutteral angry rant, aka, lucky nobody reads this, style.
The UK government's consistently conflicting messaging owes more to Victor comics as their wonderfully adolescent soul shines through. It's merely a spotlight on how unskilled they are for the role, the job of populism is to win elections not run a country. The fact they are more interested in delivering good news than confronting covid has been evident from the hand shaking Boris insisted on doing in March, through their dubious deadlines on 100,000 tests and millions of vaccines. I just want to shout "yes kids, you're doing a great job now take the weekend off and hand over to someone else, anyone else!"
They need a bit of love and like all the politicians in our country and overseas they need a break. They are totally fucked. They haven't slept well and for many, decision making is a skill they lost during April/ May.
I'm retired now but when I managed I could tell when I needed to do something (5%) and when I needed to shut up and listen to what I was being told (95%).
There's been so much talk about the economy tanking and livelihoods, yet the post Brexit levers of government are huge, or so we've been told. In tackling poverty I've heard suggestions that we can go to zero rated VAT, now that's an argument for another day as we filter that through the system, but analysing and modelling the levers at our discretion is obvious.
Identifying what can open or is covid sensitive is not so obvious. I've argued previously that lower division football grounds could open to season ticket holders. Like Golf Clubs and other member clubs it seems an easy way to let significant numbers of people out to carry out transactions and keep the economy going. This is simplistic as it is divisive, and that's where we hit the politicians dilemna. I hate when spell check wants dilemma, but I'm adamant, it was dilemna when I was at school in P4 and I spelt it the easy way too for the Darnestown Elementary school in Grade 5. Am I a dinosaur for thinking that way or are dinosaur's useful. I digress. If you wait long enough I'll bore you about the time Stoke City signed Alan Hudson for $600,000, when I was in Grade 5, January 12 1974, oh I longed for home while in the USA.
Our economy has been a service based one for a while (since we stopped subsidising our nationalised industries and used the oil revenues, council house sales and privatisations to fund the unemployment) and some of those services have been hit hard by Covid , but the biggest, the financial services, will be destroyed by Brexit, particularly if we cant do a deal.
It is no surprise to see Scotland surging in support for Independence in Europe, many financiers know that they're stuck between a rock and a hard place. ScotLond was a popular phrase post the Brexit vote and will doubtless rock up again in the run up to another independence vote. The key for those pitching independence will depend on their view of the currency. I thought the vote in 2014 should have stated that the Euro was our currency of choice. The foolish notions of allying with Europe but leaving the currency struck me as madness. I'm guessing it was a sop to those worried about losing the Queen of state. For me, that's like Boris' Brexit. Gove and others keep telling us we can have our cake and eat it, but I just think that's the city attitude of late 80's, poetically covered in Liars Poker. Another of Michael Lewis' book was made into a great film, The Big Short, and if anyone wants to understand why the Brexit talks head towards no deal, the ammunition is all there.
I'll vote for independence if its with a currency change, but I'll not if somebody wants to keep the pound. Divorce is always messy and frequently expensive. Scotland finds itself well snookered. Its married to a shagger with 6 wives and is still trying to work out what will be best for the kids.
Manufacturing has been ignored at best and maligned at worst.
I must commend @glackinreports for highlighting the post Brexit arrangements on WHISKEY not whisky.
Well Done!
Its a wee snifter as a fellow tipster once said....
Its not very canny, for the wee mackem manny when the Nissan factory goes,
and whether driving a car or pourin' fae the jar
It's a whiff of Brexit that shows.
Its back to 83 when the driver next to me, said,
its gone on too long, yes I know it was wrong
I hear the Donkey.
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