Coronavirus: Nicola Sturgeon shows Boris Johnson how to be a true leader – Christine Grahame MSP

I can’t believe it’s only been just over 100 days since that dark March day when we all went into total lockdown, seems a lifetime; a different world, and so it is.

I think back then to my one permitted walk per day, in the dark to avoid meeting other people on the Edinburgh streets when I took comfort in the fairy lights someone had put around their window in defiance of the disease; streets I had never walked in 25 years.

Neighbours spoke over garden fences and strangers had a passing word. There were the rainbows, the teddy trails and the Thursday clap for carers and the NHS.

This week the news in Scotland is heartening with Covid cases dropping to single figures and the same with daily deaths, but daily deaths there still are.

When you look at the Scottish death count – 2485 (at the time of typing) – these are heart-breaking figures, and each one a person with a life cut short.

I protect you, you protect me

How did we get here, now, on the brink of a recovery? The hard way, cutting each of us off from our own species, walking on the edge of pavements, or stepping on to the road to make that two-metre gap.

I am now adept at online banking, shopping with home deliveries (Will you be in, they ask? Eh, yes), home working, Teams and Zoom.

We all know what the R number means and face coverings are not only necessary but some are idiosyncratic fashion statements (mine is from a recycled pillow case, if you ask). We must wear them on buses and soon while in shops. Mine protects you if I have the virus and don’t know it, and yours protects me. That’s what I call mutual benefit.

Shops are opening, the zoo, parks and schools in August (all being well). I have cuddled my grandchildren and have even made two trips to stores (with mask and hand gel).

Yet we are not out of the woods. It just takes some craziness, big assemblies in parks, casualness and the virus will be off and before you and I know it lockdown will return, shops will be closed down again and so on.

Economy still at risk

Some thought the First Minister was too cautious and claimed she was throwing the economy under a bus with her resolve on reducing the virus infection rate.

I recall the clamour to open the schools, the businesses more quickly but she remained determined. And she was right.

It never was a trade-off, an either or, between the economy and public health, they go hand in hand.

Lift the foot off the Covid brake too soon and the economy regresses into a collapse which it is scary to imagine. Leicester is a lesson to us all (if not to Boris Johnson). It could happen anywhere at any time if we get sloppy with the rules to protect us, and the economy.

The comparison between our leader the First Minister and the Prime Minister is quite telling: the cautious responsible informed “down to every detail” leader and the showman, the blusterer who does press-ups to the press to impress. Nicola Sturgeon just impresses.

Stick with the rules as she has said, and we may even come close to eradicating this cruel virus from Scotland.

Christine Grahame is the SNP MP for Midlothian South, Tweeddale and Lauderdale

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