LibLInk: Christine Jardine on the perfect storm that shows up our bad Governments

In her Scotsman column this week, Christine Jardine looks at the “perfect storm” of food and fuel shortages, health service crisis, Covid and high energy prices we are facing at the moment. She argues that the show how bad both UK and Scottish Governments are – and we shouldn’t let them away with blaming Covid and Brexit for our current travails. They were failing long before then:

It must be tempting for those responsible for the well-being of the NHS to blame its current predicament on all the other elements of the storm. That somehow the crisis which has necessitated calling in the Armed Forces to support our ambulance service is purely the result of the circumstances we find ourselves in. That they can look to the example of our energy industry which is defending itself with evidence of an unusual lack of wind and solar resources and a fire on an interconnector.

But that would be to ignore the reality which we have all experienced in different ways over recent, pre-pandemic years. The damage done by the increasing centralisation of public services and decision-making in Scotland.

On top of everything else, the FLu jag programme has been a nightmare this year.

Then a friend told me they had turned up on time for her pre-arranged flu jag to discover the venue she had been instructed to attend was closed and locked.

Everywhere you look our most valued public service is fraying at the seams. And there is more than one burden falling on more than one set of shoulders.

Think for a moment about someone living alone, shielding for most of the past 500 days. It’s nearly October. Flu season.

Friends with chronic conditions tell me they feel a responsibility to not get ill. They worry that if their asthma or diabetes betrays them in the coming months, or they slip on an ungritted pavement, that help won’t come.

Dark nights and poorer weather are no longer a change of season. They are a threat. People are scared.

Over the past 18 months they needed us, their elected representatives to work together. To come together to find practical, tangible solutions to deliver what we all need.

But that is not the Scottish Government’s approach:

Friends with chronic conditions tell me they feel a responsibility to not get ill. They worry that if their asthma or diabetes betrays them in the coming months, or they slip on an ungritted pavement, that help won’t come.

Dark nights and poorer weather are no longer a change of season. They are a threat. People are scared.

Over the past 18 months they needed us, their elected representatives to work together. To come together to find practical, tangible solutions to deliver what we all need.

Practically, it will drive Scots to airports south of the Border while hurting ours and the travel industry in general. Politically, it looks like they can’t wait to throw the toys out of the proverbial pram. It achieves nothing.

And achieving nothing feels like the destination Scotland has arrived at. A&E waiting times are the worst on record for the fifth time in six weeks. Elderly constituents desperate for their flu vaccine have been left to travel to a vaccine hub too far away from their home. The Red Cross and the military are being deployed.

You can read the whole article here.

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