The play was a success, but the audience was a failure, lamented Oscar Wilde. Or was it George Bernard Shaw? At any rate, I was reminded of the anecdote while listening to the first minister’s most recent Trumpian reaction to scrutiny.
Nicola Sturgeon’s response-cum- tirade to failing to hit her own Covid-19 vaccination target for 40 to 49-year-olds insulted not just the intelligence of journalists (well, fair enough) and opposition parliamentarians, but also the wider public.
So now you know — Sturgeon’s refusal to admit that her deeds have failed to match her words is all our fault. We’re the flops. Poor Nicola, poor us. As Wilde definitely said: “If the lower orders don’t set us a good example, what on earth is the use of them?”
You could be forgiven for thinking that it would have been simpler, not to say honest, for Sturgeon to acknowledge the missed vaccination target and examine where the problem lies.
A similar unwillingness to face up to policy failure was evident in her response to the latest appalling drug-death figures for Scotland, which have hit another macabre record for the seventh year in a row.
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To describe the deaths of 1,339 people as “shameful”, while in the same breath insisting that they “predate [Scottish government] actions set out at start of year”, ignores the fact her party has been in power for 14 years and that she was health minister before spending the last seven as first minister.
Such verbal gymnastics appear to be an acknowledgement from the first minister that nothing she says should be taken at face value.
Business owners and employers know this well. Remember that £500 million business growth scheme that after five years had advanced only a fraction of that amount? What about that non-existent publicly owned energy company that was supposed to help struggling Scots with their energy bills? Remember Sturgeon’s much-trumpeted ban on fracking? When challenged, she didn’t even have the courage of her dubious convictions, and decided to spend £175,000 of taxpayers’ money to plead in court that she hadn’t actually banned fracking, in order to win her legal battle with Ineos, Scotland’s biggest industrial investor.
What about all those promises to create green jobs, improve education and healthcare, tackle the aforementioned litany of drug deaths, or address the disgraceful neglect of our national ferry services, which are currently on the brink of collapse?
All politicians promise what they cannot deliver, but Sturgeon is in a league of her own. Like all populists, she has that uncanny ability to get away with saying what the public wants to hear and doing nothing to deliver it.
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It is ridiculous that businesses and employers still remain in the dark about what, if any, of the Scottish government’s Covid-19 “baseline measures” — such as social distancing and face masks — will be eased next week on August 9, Scotland’s “Freedom Day”.
Last week’s television meltdown was a further reminder of the utter absurdity of the BBC’s insistence on broadcasting Sturgeon’s television show. After all, if the first minister cannot answer questions honestly, what is the point? And whose interests are being served by these briefings?
Will Westminster take a Liberty?
Call it a Brexit bonus, or the changing face of capitalism during the pandemic, but Westminster’s decision to nationalise Sheffield Forgemasters is a big deal and could have repercussions in Scotland. The move to buy the business for £2.5 million is a recognition that steel production is an important national asset. The Yorkshire steelmaker, which traces its history back to a blacksmith forge in the 1750s, is a key supplier to the Royal Navy’s Clyde-based Trident fleet of nuclear submarines and is integral to Westminster’s plans to expand nuclear power through small modular reactors.
The question is whether Westminster will also see Sanjeev Gupta’s Liberty Steel Group, including his plants in Scotland, as a candidate for similar treatment.
Although Westminster rejected Liberty’s request for £170 million of financial support earlier this year, a precedent has now been set.
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While not as directly strategic as Sheffield Forgemasters, there is a strong case for maintaining capacity in the sector against the backdrop of surging metal prices and the ambitious “levelling up” infrastructure projects planned by Boris Johnson’s government.
Moreover, Gupta’s “green steel” strategy — which uses electric arc furnaces to recycle scrap metal into new steel products — offers a blueprint for industry, based on clean energy plants providing power.
Steel trade union Community told me: “The future for Gupta’s businesses, including those in Scotland, must be secured. We hope Mr Gupta will succeed in obtaining the necessary financing. However, if he is not able to do this, then government must step in to protect the jobs and assets.”
You can imagine the howls from the Scottish government in the event that Westminster decided to take control of the business — and, in doing so, bail out the Scottish government from under its nose. Watch this space.