Readers' Letters: Why did Sturgeon not ensure proper Covid records?

The Scottish input to the Covid Inquiry may not be producing many answers for the relatives of the people who died during the pandemic, but it points to the critical decisions being made by a small group of politicians rather than the “cabinet” government whom we are led to believe governs our country.

Surely then First Minister Nicola Sturgeon realised a public inquiry would follow the end of the pandemic and contemporaneous records would be needed, says reader (Photo by Jane Barlow-Pool/Getty Images)

Nicola Sturgeon may have been seen as a Messiah by many people, leading our country through the dark days of an emergency never seen before and bettering the efforts of “Boris the Clown” in Westminster. However, this idealistic image of our then leader is becoming tarnished with the inconsistent evidence being provided by the major players at the time. Why did Ms Sturgeon, who has allegedly experienced difficulties with her memory in the past, not arrange for proper official records of all the crucial policy decisions to be compiled and available for the inevitable public investigation which would come. It would have prevented the back-stabbing and shifting of responsibility we have recently seen.

Then again, good practice sometimes gets in the way of avoiding transparency and accountability.

Bob MacDougall, Kippen, Stirlingshire

Covid failures

“We should have tested sooner...” was Humza Yousaf’s response to the biggest UK and Scottish Government failure during the Covid pandemic. Mr Yousaf didn’t tell the Covid Inquiry whether that should have been day one or day ten after patients were transferred from hospitals to care homes, but by then it was too late. If patients couldn’t be tested in hospital they needed to be isolated in secure accommodation and tested there – not integrated with vulnerable residents.

As well as the lack of transparency over WhatsApp messaging, victims who watched relatives die or were savagely deprived of that opportunity and those living with long Covid are understandably scathing about the answers they are getting. Whether it’s Professor Jason Leitch’s nuanced advice on mask wearing and flippant remarks when thousands were dying, the failure to lock down earlier, lack of testing or passing the blame to the UK Government, victims surely deserve better than this.

To top it all we had Nicola Sturgeon’s then special adviser, Liz Lloyd, gleefully telling the enquiry of trying to wind up the UK Government by looking for a “good old fashioned rammy so I can think about something other than sick people”. They played “political tactics” rather than work together to save the lives of loved ones.

There will be many blaming Nicola Sturgeon next week but it’s becoming clear that thousands died needlessly through the early lack of testing, quarantining and locking down borders across the UK, as some other countries successfully achieved, allowing life to largely carry on as normal.

As Mark Woolhouse, professor of infectious disease epidemiology at Edinburgh University, stated, the “stay at home” order was “never necessary”, schools should have remained open for longer and there should not have been restrictions outdoors. It was all so unnecessary and unprepared.

Neil Anderson, Edinburgh

Good hounded

Another pandemic is almost certain and it may well be more virulent and harder to vaccinate against than Covid. There will be horribly difficult decisions to make.

The underlying themes to the current media hysteria indicate we are deeply unprepared. We are telling ourselves that all tragedies are avoidable, if only other people would do their jobs properly; that all consequences are attributable to human failing and those responsible can be identified and blamed; and that this is the process by which we learn how to control the future and avert further tragedies.People are engaged in a desperate search for hidden explanations from which false reassurances about the future can be crafted, instead of facing up to the harsh realities of Covid and the probability that the next pandemic will be much, much worse.

It’s of absolutely no comfort to know that the people leading our future response will have to spend precious hours every day ensuring that every comment, every exchange is recorded in the vain hope this will protect them from future hounding. That’s assuming anyone is prepared to shoulder the responsibility given the callous treatment of good, dedicated people over recent weeks.

Robert Farquharson, Edinburgh

Vote for o ld ways

I agree with Stan Hogarth (Letters, 26 January) that after the Horizon scandal there is no way Fujitsu should be involved in the new Scottish local elections vote counting system. I would go one step further. There is only one method of vote counting that is not only foolproof, but is seen to be honest. That is actual tellers counting actual crosses or preferences on actual paper ballot papers in large halls with members of the public, interested parties and media sitting in a viewing gallery overseeing the process.

Saving a few pounds is irrelevant. Public trust in the system is priceless.

Ian McNicholas, Waunlwyd, Ebbw Vale

Set apart

Among the routine “bad Scottish ferry news” in the media this week was the report that plans to restart the direct passenger car ferry service between Rosyth to Dunkirk had been dropped. This leaves Scotland unique among the nations of north-west Europe, in having no international ferry service to connect us to our neighbours.

In contrast, similar- sized Denmark has no less than 12 ferry routes that connect it to Iceland, Norway, Sweden, Germany and England. Little Estonia (1.4 million population) has three ferry services that connect it to Finland and Sweden. Ireland has five direct ferry services to Spain and France (as well as its connections to England and Wales) and is actively developing new ones to other mainland European ports to maintain its post-Brexit connectivity and avoid the UK land-bridge. And even tiny remote Iceland has a direct ferry service to Denmark.

Claims that Scotland is not big enough to sustain ferry services to mainland Europe are absurd, since Scotland is bigger than, or equivalent to, Denmark, Ireland, Iceland, Estonia, Norway.

But of course, also unique among the nations of north-west Europe is Scotland’s status as a poor, isolated and disconnected British region. Another great British union dividend to celebrate!

D Jamieson, Dunbar, East Lothian

Devil in the detail

Jill Stephenson (Letters, 26 January) is correct – the devil is in the detail anent state pension comparisons, and in many countries the state pension is not augmented, or not so much, by private pension schemes such as the UK's relatively widespread plans which had the benefit of tax-deductible contributions.

Many, and possibly most, countries impose their NIC equivalents on pensioners (justifiably – why should those on high or comfortably-off incomes be favoured, as I am?); while many have higher income tax rates and/or lower tax thresholds.

Many require all citizens' medical costs, including those of pensioners, to be covered by private insurance where specific conditions and costs must be selected for each year's cover, such as in The Netherlands, where my sister-in-law did not include ambulance transport in her cover. After seeing her GP about a complaint he insisted she must go by ambulance to and from the hospital for further tests (despite her being happy to cycle the couple of miles!) which cost her €400.

Freebies and other allowances available to pensioners can also make a big difference. Any international survey therefore needs to cover all the foregoing, along with cost of living adjustments relevant to pensioners, to give valid net disposable income comparisons.

John Birkett, St Andrews, Fife

Failing scores

While Alexander McKay (Letters, 26 January) continues to push the bounds of supposition and speculation in seeking to find fault with the Scottish Government, this time over a dog attack, Jill Stephenson side steps addressing fundamental aspects of coincidences highlighted (Letters, 25 January) among perceived failings in Scotland and UK failings.

Instead of disrespectfully impugning the integrity of those who seek to look beyond politically slanted headlines it would be more constructive if Ms Stephenson were to set aside, at least temporarily, her unquestioning defence of the dysfunctional Union and examine why people across the UK are being failed morally, democratically and economically.

Abstaining on the call at the UN for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza while overriding a decision of the Supreme Court in order to send away those fleeing war zones, some legally entitled to remain in the UK, is morally repugnant to many. Attempting to prorogue the UK Parliament and unilaterally rejecting international laws and conventions while preventing the Scottish Parliament from exercising its legitimate mandate is not democratic, especially when the authority of the UK Government derives from a widely discredited first-past-the-post voting system endorsed by an anachronistic House of Lords.

It is perhaps telling that Ms Stephenson did not attempt to argue that poor growth in the Scottish economy is not directly linked to the UK’s “15 years of economic decline” (according to the LSE CEP). How sad that some appear to have so little faith in the abilities of fellow Scots that even with Scotland’s considerable resources they cannot envisage a constitutional future beyond the current dire state of the UK.

Stan Grodynski, Longniddry, East Lothian

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