Covid-19 Deaths Skyrocket in Scotland under Nicola Sturgeon; every time there is bad news for the SNP leader, a Sturgeon sob story is rolled off the production line, Sturgeon 'cries at night' with worry over coronavirus, interestingly, Scotland isn’t concerned about her mental health, they want answers, they want action and they want the truth, and yeah her to do the day job, not a telly show

Dear All

In literature, we are all familiar with the plucky heroine who overcomes hardship and crippling adversity while toiling tireless on behalf of others and in the end becomes a beacon for the nation. Such fairytales sometimes become real life when someone puts themselves before others, but I want to blog on someone who is trying to pull the wool over your eyes. Someone we all know, someone we despise, someone who is nasty, vain and according to some a narcissist who in any situation craves to be the centre of attention.

I am talking about SNP leader Nicola Sturgeon.

We are in a worldwide pandemic caused by Covid-19, thousands have already lost their lives that we know about and thousands more are going to die. Through-out this crisis in the UK, it is essential that there is teamwork, co-operation and leadership shown, but First Minister Nicola Sturgeon doesn’t want to play that game. Instead we in Scotland have had Covid -19 preparations with a tartan badge stuck on it. We have had Nicola Sturgeon for political purposes talking information from UK Cobra meetings and leaking it out before the UK. I put it to you that Sturgeon’s actions aren’t the integrity of what we expect in politicians, even ones who lead devolved government.

Nicola Sturgeon literally can’t stop playing petty vile nationalist politics because in her DNA, she is still the horrible nasty vile little woman she is before the SNP decided to re-brand her as the ‘mother of the nation’. The self confessed ‘Chief Mammy’ is in fact no mammy at all, at any level, and despite the force feeding of Sturgeon child in arms and fake smile for the cameras by the SNP, Scots don’t like her, don’t like what she does, don’t like how she acts and the stage-managed persona hasn’t worked with the public.

The Nicola Sturgeon Show on the BBC is dire, but worse than it being dire in content, we are learning how unreliable this information is in not painting a true picture of the death toll in Scotland. We are learning a lot about Nicola Sturgeon and none of it is good. We are learning that the SNP Government have been complacent about protecting our elderly in care homes, we are learning about shortages in protective equipment in the NHS and in care homes as well. We are learning about the SNP failing to protect business and then doing U turns. Aside from Sturgeon telling us all that she has made mistakes, she isn’t telling us what the mistakes were, when they took place and the consequences of those mistakes. Her mistakes are “packaged” in a sound bite of her generalisation that everyone has made mistakes!

There has been a massive rise in Covid-19 deaths in Scotland because we are learning about the ‘forgotten sector’, the care home sector, unprepared and under-sourced with the added knowledge that those who are elderly getting pressurised into signing DNR forms. DNR is ‘do not resuscitate’ in the event a patient’s heart stops. Has this been cancelled by Nicola Sturgeon?

No!

It seems her statement that all live is precious has a rather hollow ring to it, of course Sturgeon has a get out of jail free card; she can hide behind ‘clinical need’ in doing nothing. She isn’t willing to address the problem because she has washed her hands of it; it is up to families to fight for their loved ones. Just how important or how much weight can you put on Nicola Sturgeon’s statement that all life is precious?

In the wake of the knowledge that deaths in Scotland have taken a steep rise to circa 1600, the SNP want to get people not to focus on that statistic but rather to move the agenda on from it. This is why when bad news happens which the SNP feels damages them or Nicola Sturgeon; it is time for a sob story about Nicola. They have done this in the past and they will do this in the future, you see they follow a pattern or a modus operandi. So, what is the fallback story they use, well it is the ‘mother of the nation’ who is suffering due to the magnitude of the coronavirus pandemic. It is in her own words at times ‘overwhelming’. During an interview with Jennifer Reoch and Des Clarke on Heart Scotland Drive Nicola Sturgeon said that the worry of coronavirus, as well as having family members working on the front line, often takes its toll on her mental health.

Where is the rest of the SNP Cabinet?

What you are watching at her daily telly show is also election campaigning, campaigning that places Nicola Sturgeon at the centre of the effort to save Scotland. It is padded out with a few guests who eventually speak, say little of interest before handing back to her. Be in no doubt this pandemic has given Nicola Sturgeon a stage for the next Holyrood election which will be all about her. Her is a taste of her campaigning which is engineered to make seem like ‘one of the people’ who just happens to be in charge.

Nicola Sturgeon said:

“It’s about always remembering that – and I know people struggle with the notion that politicians are human – but we’re human beings. There are moments when, over the last few weeks, when I’ve got home at night and just felt a little bit overwhelmed by the magnitude of it, and I’ve shed a few tears over the course of the last few weeks.”

Are you buying into this nonsense, I suspect few will be, you can’t take a horrible person and re-invent them as nice, especially when we know, she has had media training, and also we have seen the mask slip.

Sturgeon added:

“But it’s really important – nobody wants me to be having a meltdown if I can avoid it – so I try to have these moments, not let them last too long, and pull myself together to get on with it. I’m trying to remind myself that there are aspects of this that are not normal, that are much bigger than anything I’ve dealt with before, so remembering that, I have to take time just to deal with that.”

Do you get the narrative, its all about her; it is the same narrative which has been used since Alex Salmond resigned in 2014 after losing the independence referendum. Another part of the narrative is to praise other people which is why we get that Sturgeon is proud of the thousands of volunteers who are selflessly helping during the pandemic and of how people and businesses who have helped at NHS Louisa Jordan. But you will notice that no mention whatsoever of the help of the British Army who pulled everything together which is why we have a hospital at the SECC in Glasgow.

Sturgeon also said:

“We launched the ‘Scotland Cares’ campaign asking for people to volunteer and within hours of doing that we’d had thousands, tens of thousands of people doing it. I’ve visited the NHS Louisa Jordan, the new hospital, a week or so ago, complying with all social distancing when I did it, but seeing that, the construction, I’ve never seen a happier group of construction workers, people knowing that they were doing something that mattered and people going the extra mile. The place was full of, you know, things that companies had donated, for staff and people involved there, and in every single community right now there will be people looking out for others. I’m sure there’s people looking out for neighbours they’ve never spoken to before. So, big and small, I think we’re really demonstrating what it means to be a community.”

And in case you missed it, she is also saying that when you read between the lines, all of this was done by the SNP Government, and the SNP Government is Nicola Sturgeon. It was Nicola who brought Scotland together, we that is notion running through her mind which the press is pumping out. In this crisis, you get the feeling that despite Sturgeon saying she wants to share information, that isn’t really the case. We are getting a patchwork of information, and although we suspected a higher death toll, Sturgeon and her team ‘managed’ it. What do you think will happen after the current lockdown extension ends?

Do you think everything will be back to normal?

Finally, Sturgeon added about how emotional she feels, saying:

“(The) Thursday night clap, I think has brought communities together, it’s actually, you were asking me about moments I felt emotional, I feel really emotional every Thursday night when we do that. But health and care workers are really important but I think it’s also really important that we don’t forget other essential workers, those that are keeping food on the table, keeping the lights on, our police, our prison staff and prison officers.”

Well, Nicola Sturgeon has the virus in front of her, Alex Salmond and his crew behind her; she has few allies it appears maybe the cause is down to her having a horrible personality. Less we forget and we shouldn’t, the realisation that she is living on borrowed time politically. When it comes Nicola Sturgeon’s time of need, there will be a deafening silence from Scotland. You might have got a taste of that when some people tried to float the idea of a ‘clap for Nicola’ which never got passed the sound bite stage.

Yours sincerely

George Laird

The Campaign for Human Rights at Glasgow University