Nicola Sturgeon cracks me up.

[Merename]

Just read an excerpt from her address today. I know not all of you will love her and I don’t think coronavirus has been handled perfectly, but she is an intelligent and likeable example of Scottish people, imo. I love the way she is dignified and avoids politicising everything, yet still is direct enough to comment on how ridiculous Boris can be:

Tom Gordon, from The Herald, points out that, in the prime minister's speech this morning, Boris Johnson emphasised the role of the union, calling it "an incredible partnership" that proved its worth during the pandemic. He asks what the first minister's response is considering she would like Scotland to be independent.

"Boris Johnson and I are very different kinds of people, very different personalities and I would, in a whole range of ways, choose not to emulate him and how he speaks and how he behaves and I'm sure he would choose not to emulate me in many respects," Nicola Sturgeon replies.

"I don't think you'll catch me very often leaping to the floor to do press-ups during a media interview, for example.

"In terms of the wider and future arguments about Scotland's constitutional future, people will make their own minds up on that and draw their own conclusions and part of the process they will go through is watching how the Scottish government conducts itself and how Boris Johnson conducts himself.

"My focus is on tackling this virus and any leader should have that as their central focus."

Should be treated as a hate crime imo.

The usual suspects have gone quiet all of a sudden!

Good on Hamza Yousaf for standing up to them, I see he’s already getting abuse for it, but I can’t help noticing Nicola Sturgeon’s silence on the issue. She’s quick enough to tweet about anything else she sees as a slight, whether it’s a comment by Sarah Smith or comments about her policies, and she must be aware of it as she was tagged dozens of times (at least) and a lot of the papers have the story.

I appreciate that this puts her in an awkward situation and I’m not suggesting it was her idea, but she is the figurehead of the movement, the numpties at the border were acting in her cause’s name, so she needs to unequivocally condemn this or else been seen to tacitly approve. After all, her talk over recent days about border control and how Scotland has lower infection rates than ‘England’ without noting that it’s actually certain hotspots in England (and Wales for that matter), has given these people the confidence/excuse they need to express their anti-Englishness.

She absolutely dog whistled over this so it’s her fault.
Tourism is so important for jobs in Scotland but let’s make our biggest market feel unwelcome 🤦‍♀️ People in England can just as easily go anywhere else on holiday.

Odd, isn't it, how these idiots are telling English visitors to stay away, but a pub in Berwick on Tweed reported 70% of its bookings for Saturday came from people north of the border.....

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-south-scotland-53293055

Agree that Nicola Sturgeon should be making a statement as clear as Hamza Yousaf did. The local MSP made some half-arsed tweet last night about how the actions were "ill-conceived". That's hardly condemnation.

And did you see the tweet from Devi Sridhar - the expert advising on Covid - saying that people who were unionists were "anti-Scottish"? She's deleted it now and apologised, but speaks volumes that she thought that was appropriate language in the first place.

Oh and Sturgeon's tweeting this morning about the NHS and how she loved the Hamilton musical.

Radio silence on the Border Racists.

Oh dear, just catching up on these border folk, I hadn’t heard, that’s so grim. And I agree, problematic for Nicola not to respond.

And I’m now wondering - when I’ve visited my mum there’s been a crew of flag waving folk above the m80 that we’ve always peeped at - I hope it wasn’t racists like this! Will be a bit more judicious in future.

I am also very sorry to hear of anti-English sentiment that any of you have encountered. As I said, most people I know (work in public sector) are Yessers, coming from a place of wanting to improve social justice and a more equal society. When I get involved in campaigning next time, it will be on these points and I would condemn anyone who promoted hatred and bigotry. My message to no voters would be not to allow events like this to make you think that every yes voter is like this.

Devi Sridhar has gone down in my estimation in recent days precisely because of her overly politicised tweets. Initially I thought she spoke a lot of sense about the science, but she has since revealed a strong support for nationalism that is inappropriate for a supposedly independent scientific advisor IMO. She is of course entitled to her opinions on politics, but in a high profile position as a supposedly impartial scientific advisor she should be careful about what she expresses on the topic, and stick to the science. I saw a screen shot of her unionists are anti-Scottish tweet and have to admit I was shocked and disgusted by it.

Those two ( at the border) are a couple of fckwits. Plain and simple.
Someone made a reference to AUOB being as guilty as them. There are a whole host of nations at the marches. You'll see Welsh, English and a tonne of other flags walking for independence from WM.

Of course not all yessers are like this, but I agree that NS has wound this up and I'm sorry, but if your not part of the solution you are part of the problem. It seems to be OK to be anti English. Imagine if they were shouting go home to any other nationality or if it was the other way round? Can you imagine NS on the podium if Scots had been abused by folk from the BNP?

All those folk going about with their wee saltires on their car, how long do you think it would be before my car was keyed if I stuck a George's Cross on mine or even a union jack?

It makes me fucking sick the devision that the SNP and NS have caused.

But yeah, great woman and such a laugh

two people? Are you incapable of counting? And you said you were university educated? Or do you just see what you want to see?

And it appears it wasn't a "cross border" outbreak after all....

www.thetimes.co.uk/article/cross-border-virus-outbreak-in-galloway-linked-to-scottish-hot-tub-party-wftgnms8q

The thing is...

There are hospitality businesses choosing to stay closed in the Highlands and Islands just now because they don’t want “the English” coming up... it’s got nothing at all to do with the fact they’re English really though, it’s because they’re worried about visitors from areas with a higher rate of active cases coming to an area with very poor access to hospitals and treatment if it starts to spread.

It’s not anti English at all, it’s not because of their nationality... if the central belt had the same number of cases as some places in England, they’d be wanting to stop people from there coming too - it’s about the health infrastructure.

If you live somewhere where the population doubles or more every summer from visitors, but you know access to a hospital is by being airlifted to one that barely has space normally... well...

I mean, obviously standing at the border shouting at people to go home is stupid and nasty, but I can understand why currently there’s strong feelings about people travelling from England.

Oh dear, that doesn’t fit with the ‘close the border to stop the dirty English spreading disease’ narrative.

But of course many businesses in the Highlands are open - so which it it? Yes, we do want the business, or no, we don't want people spreading infection?

Also, if Scotland is so keen to stop the virus being spread across the border, why were many, many people travelling to Berwick/Carlisle etc to go to the pub on Saturday?

It's ridiculous because "England" isn't a massive homogenous lump. Some parts of England - like the South West or the east of England have had a very low number of cases. Far fewer than Glasgow/Edinburgh.

But these raving loonies on the border are so hard of thinking that they have lapped up the "England bad, Scotland good" routine.

I can understand people living very rurally being concerned about being swamped, and we were all told not to travel to the Highlands or islands because of hte infrastructure problems. However, people who run businesses in the Highlands just have to do what EVERYONE else is doing - decide either not to open at all, or to open with appropriate measures like increased hygiene or social distancing. They cannot have it both ways.

They also can't realistically think that they can judge how likely someone is to be infected based on their country of residence. Total and utter nonsense and shows a real lack of knowledge about spread and statistics. Perhaps someone from Brimingham is more likely to have Covid than someone from Inverness. But the absolute likellihood of ANYONE being infected unknowingly and travelling to the Highlands is minute.

Now that we can fly abroad on holidays, are there going to be people in hospitals going "spanish out, french out" etc?

Or are we all going to pack our bikinis and we're all going on a summer holiday?

Scotland could very well see cases increase from holidays abroad and not the big bad English.

(I really want a foreign holiday btw but I'm not going yet!)

on a non NS note, I have done two covid home tests in recent weeks. The first week was because I had a high temperature and runny nose. The result came back the day after I posted it unclear so I had to do it again. The first time it said a courier would collect the completed test - no problem.

The second time, they had changed the return process to you must post it back using a priority postbox, which I did. Its been a week, no test result, contacted them and they say they haven't received it? Which makes me a bit anxious (although I feel fine now). How many other people could be walking around infected because of this crappy system? So I do not believe the case numbers reported.

(I did self isolate btw)

*airports not hospitals!

@tabulahrasa the problem is that ‘England’ has been held up as a really dangerous country in terms of travel when in fact most of England also has low infection rates as this updated map shows. The average infection rate is dragged up there because of a few hotspots of infection, none of which are near the Scottish border, and the worst one in Leicester is under lock down so the chances of people coming here from there are very small. This misrepresentation has been actively promoted by the First Minister with talk of ‘Scotland’ doing better than ‘England’, for reasons that must surely be political. Her refusal to condemn the anti-English racists acting on this misinformation is astonishing.

Thank you Tabula. The Western Isles have had 0 cases and quite rightly CalMac asking for proof of address to travel on the ferrries.

If someone can send me a link where NS has said people shouldn't travel from England to Scotland, please provide.
As I see it it's the pressing stirring things as usual as they did with lying that AUOB were planning a march during lockdown and said so at her briefing and asked her for her opinion ( also ridic as AUOB are not affiliated with any one political party hence the name).

The Western Isles have had 0 cases and quite rightly CalMac asking for proof of address to travel on the ferrries.

Whit?!

Are they checking your address to see if you are currently affected or if you've had your Aunt Betty in the house illegally? Or are the keeping weegies and associated areas out? many areas of Scotland have higher rates of infection than areas in England.

I've got to the point where i think it would be easier to split the country in two and let all the little Scotlanders build a wee wall around themselves and see how they get on and the rest of us can crack on in peace.

MumofHunter, the WI have had 7 cases according to the Scot Gov statistics:
www.gov.scot/publications/coronavirus-covid-19-daily-data-for-scotland/

“The average infection rate is dragged up there because of a few hotspots of infection, none of which are near the Scottish border“

I’m pretty sure the Highlands and Islands aren’t so bothered about how close places are to the border tbh, lol

And yep businesses are having to decide whether to open or not themselves - like everyone else.

I’m not an SNP supporter by the way, I don’t blindly support or oppose any party, I’m very much a floating voter.

I’m just pointing out that what could be seen as an anti English feeling from some areas is very much just an awareness of where a lot of summer visitors come from - people do usually visit from all those hotspot areas, and knowing that the health infrastructure isn’t great.

If you live somewhere where giving birth involves a ferry and then a 3 hour ambulance journey, a health crisis does tend to make you a bit over cautious.

I don't disagree tabula but they need to decide themselves to either open or not or take whatever precautions and open etc. No-one can force them. But deciding who you allow on the premises based on their address (or accent) makes no sense and therefore isn't a sensible precaution, whereas cleaning and sanitising and distancing are.

@WaxOn CalMac were checking addresses to check that you live there. So keyworkers returning from the mainland etc.