RUTH Davidson and Jackie Baillie reached new depths while scraping the bottom of their barrels on Wednesday while attacking the Scottish Government over the findings in the Auditor General’s report in respect of the pandemic.
How many governments throughout the world had contingency plans ready for a Covid-19 pandemic?
While the autocratic governments in China and North Korea took immediate action and several other geographically isolated countries – including South Korea, Australia and New Zealand – closed their borders very quickly, most other countries had to start from a similar position to that of Scotland.
READ MORE: Kirsty Strickland: Planning for the future just now is fruitless ... as is fixating on the past
It is likely that in dealing with the pandemic Scotland suffered more from its inability to act before permitted by Westminster legislation and lack of borrowing powers than it did from the few critical points raised in the Auditor General’s report, which was much more positive than the opposition leaders.
John Jamieson
South Queensferry
RUTH Davidson and Jackie Baillie spent First Minister’s Question Time accusing the FM of failing to prepare for the Covid-19 pandemic. I’m sure they thought they had a winner in quoting from the Sygnis and other projects. The resulting papers detailing the problems and actions were published for anyone to read and no doubt were circulated to the political parties at the time, therefore available to Davidson and Baillie several years ago.
Many people claim to be clever in hindsight (and taking words that suit them out of a newly published report intended as lessons for the future) but parliamentarians of all parties are there to do what is best for the public. So, is there evidence that Labour or Tory MSPs made any reference, before Thursday, to these reports since their publication years ago?
I have no doubt that Scottish Tory MPs will be taking Boris Johnson to task over the same issues. The whole of Scotland will be watching.
Mike Underwood
Linlithgow
In the coming weeks, only subscribers will be able to comment on The National articles. Subscribe now or log in to make sure you stay a part of the conversation.
Why are you making commenting on The National only available to subscribers?
We know there are thousands of National readers who want to debate, argue and go back and forth in the comments section of our stories. We’ve got the most informed readers in Scotland, asking each other the big questions. What should we do with our second vote in 2021? What happens if Westminster says no to indyref2?
Unfortunately, though, these important debates are being spoiled by a vocal minority of trolls who aren’t really interested in the issues, try to derail the conversation, register under fake names, and post vile abuse. We’ve had hundreds of emails from you complaining about this, asking us to take steps to ensure that these people aren’t given a platform on our site.
We’re listening to you, and here’s how we plan to make that happen.
We have decided to make the ability to comment only available to our 10,000 paying subscribers. That way, all the trolls who post abuse on our website will have to pay if they want to join the debate – and risk a permanent ban from the account that they subscribe with.
The conversation will go back to what it should be about – people who care passionately about the issues, but disagree constructively on what we should do about them.
We’ll be monitoring this change over the first few weeks, and we’re keen to know your thoughts. Email us at letters@thenational.scot if you want to have your say.
Callum Baird, Editor of The National
Last Updated:
Are you sure you want to delete this comment?
Report This Comment