Clarity is vital as the rules change

The regulation of the return to life after Covid - what what we can and cannot do, and what we will be able to do at a point in the future - is a complex business.

Just ask John Swinney, Scotland's Covid Recovery Secretary and Deputy First Minister, who got in a tangle about the possibility of "vertical drinking" - standing to enjoy a drink at a bar - earlier this week.

If the man charged with leading us out of the pandemic can't get them right, what chance the rest of us? He did, after all, know these changes were coming.

The rules on how we lead our lives matter because those restrictions that remain are, we must assume, important for our safety, and the safety of those still vulnerable to this pernicious disease.

And if the rules are important, they are also worthy of explanation - and quick revision if they are found to be ineffective or inconsistent.

As society is opened up, it appears further work is required. Some regulations, individually understandable, appear utterly baffling when considered as part of the broader range of measures in place.

Weddings, for example, are burdened with a mask etiquette which seems, at first glance, to be contradictory. Receptions will be treated under the same rules as restaurants, pubs and nightclubs - which now means that masks will not be required.

But the church service which precedes them will still require masks.

Of more consequence will be the impact of rules on our children's education.

The enforced wearing of masks in classrooms have been explained as - among other reasons - a courtesy to staff who have no choice but to be there.

But that becomes harder to justify as wedding revellers dance unmasked, and more than 100,000 football fans gather in Glasgow next week to cheer on Rangers and Celtic.

We do not begrudge any one of these relaxations: the time has come to rebuild our lives, cautiously.

But confused messaging only encourages the suspicion that the rationale behind the rules is equally incomplete.

So we hope for greater clarity, alongside greater freedom, in the days ahead.

Clarity is vital as the rules change - leader comment