Durham Town
Given the tumultuous events of the weekend I thought it would be good to start the week with a topical song from Roger Whittaker - 'Durham Town'.
Time To Go (24/05/20)
Dominic Cummings has lost the argument over his decision to relocate to Durham during the Coronavirus epidemic, even with reasonable people who have no axe to grind.
I lived in London myself for years and had no family support to fall back on in the event of a serious health emergency.
In similar circumstances, I might well have considered taking my children back to Scotland, if push came to shove and I thought such a move was in their best interests.
But Mr Cummings is part of a government which was promoting a simple 'stay at home' message at the time and people in positions of leadership simply cannot remain credible, if they are not seen to be following their own advice.
So Mr Cummings should either step aside or be sacked and Boris Johnson would be wise not to turn himself into a human shield by repeating the mistake Nicola Sturgeon made over Scotland's chief medical officer, Dr Catherine Calderwood.
Defending the Indefensible (06/04/20)
Well, the inevitable happened overnight and today the Scottish Government woke up without a chief medical officer after a calamity very much of its own making.
For whatever reason Nicola Sturgeon's political instincts deserted her as she tried to portray Catherine Calderwood's behaviour as a 'mistake' rather than a colossal misjudgment, the consequences of which were obvious to anyone with a modicum of street nous and common sense.
Yet the First Minister tried to defend the indefensible at yesterday's calamitous press conference by going in to bat for the person who was the face of her Scottish Government's lockdown policy - a policy which has kept families apart even while their loved ones have been dying alone in hospital.
First Minister Acts As Human Shield (05/04/20)
I've sat through many a press conference in my time, but I can't remember a more disastrous one than Nicola Sturgeon's 'human shield' performance as she updated the nation on the latest Coronavirus developments with the Scottish Government's chief medical officer (CMO), Catherine Calderwood by her side.
The First Minister stepped in again and again to prevent Catherine Calderwood from explaining herself by answering perfectly legitimate questions from journalists who were simply doing their job of holding the Scottish Government to account.
The YouTube video is 38 minutes long though well worth a watch.
