Scotland’s Disaster in Disguise – Part 2
In recent months, approval rating polls suggest that Nicola Sturgeon is not only favoured over Boris Johnson by Scots but incredibly, the English appear to prefer the Scottish National Party leader over their own Prime Minister. We can only conclude from this that Sturgeon is largely popular with the public – a conclusion not without reason. COVID-19 has changed a lot of things; for good and (more often) for bad. For instance, Sturgeon’s popularity has been handed a massive boost. So, reason number one for people to believe that Sturgeon is a commendable Scottish leader is the way that she has handled the coronavirus pandemic. But what exceptional statistics does she have to show for it? First things first, it’s important to appreciate that Scotland’s population is almost exactly one-tenth of England’s. It isn’t unusual for this to be forgotten a bit when considering various figures, including virus cases and so on. Scotland’s current case count is approximately 120,000 (Dec 2020); so that’s 2.2 per cent of the population. England has recorded a total of more than 1.7 million cases, which sounds astronomical compared to Scotland: but it’s only 3 per cent of the population. Let’s be clear, this is a relatively large margin, meaning that the Scottish government does appear to have done better than Johnson and his Cabinet have with England.
Frank
