When a government is pissing off almost everybody there are only two explanations as to why; incompetence or what they perceive to be necessity.
Necessity itself can be split into two categories; the public interest and zealotry.
Nicola Sturgeon’s government are not zealots.
There is no discernible advantage now or in the future to locking the country down un-necessarily.
I have to presume that she believes in the public interest argument, unless she and this government are just incompetent.
Rule incompetence out as well. Even incompetent governments are politically calculating to some degree or another. Nicola Sturgeon is pissing off businesses, unions, parents, teachers and most other social groups who either don’t like lockdown or don’t think it goes far enough.
She seems to reserve her greatest lack of giving a toss for football.
Why do I believe that her government is doing the right thing over this? And I do believe that, although I’ve been critical of certain aspects of the way she’s treated our team and soft-soaped the one across the city. I think they are doing the right thing specifically because it is unpopular, because she could have taken the easy road and isn’t willing to.
I don’t care what they are doing south of the border; Johnson is a charlatan who chases opinion poll numbers and changes his mind like weather. He’s become the master of the U-turn. Sturgeon sticks with the job in front of her.
She’s rarely buckled during this crisis, and when she speaks she evokes the confidence that she has some idea what she’s doing, but furthermore that she cares about the people in her charge. I never get that from the clown in Downing Street.
I have never believed we would see fans back at football in Scotland until we had a vaccine. I have always thought that anything else would be fantastically risky no matter how it was done; I know others disagree, and some folk simply see this issue as a way to beat the SNP. I’m not interested in petty games. I want people to be as safe as possible.
I understand that there are people who think it cannot possibly be riskier to have fans in football grounds than it is to have people drinking in pubs, but the point is moot at the moment when the pubs aren’t open either.
I trust that the Scottish Government is reading the data and getting the best advice the scientists can give them and that these decisions are based on that.
The reason I trust it is that this is an unpopular decision and there is literally nothing to gain by sticking it to football for no good reason.
If there was some political advantage to them doing this, I’d be suspicious.
You can assume, as some do, that the SNP just hates football; it’s absolute rot when you consider how many of their elected officials have made it onto the famous Ibrox Enemies List for their connections with our club in particular.
There is no anti-football agenda with this government.
There is no political advantage to be gained from turning their faces to this.
I have to conclude, therefore, that they have better information than we do and that the scientific advice is to hold.
In the West alone, three vaccines have come through the Phase 3 tests and all show a remarkably high degree of efficacy. There’s genuine light at the end of the tunnel and I do believe now we’ll see fans in grounds before this season ends … but it won’t be right now.
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