This coronavirus crisis has delivered a lesson in the power of the British state and its institutions. Rishi Sunak has added something like £60bn to public spending, and another £330bn in loan guarantees to companies. The most impressive and reassuring presences on our TV screens have been chief medical officer Chris Whitty and chief scientific adviser Patrick Vallance, flanking whichever cabinet minister has been sent out for the day, like a pair of super-brained, line-graph-wielding bodyguards. The Thursday night applause for the NHS has no national boundaries – Scots are banging their pots as much for doctors, nurses and care workers in Bolton or Swansea or Belfast as we are for those closer to home. The terrible stories of the plague’s victims – mothers, father, sons, daughters, immigrants and natives alike – elicit emotional solidarity. The plight of Boris Johnson and the Queen’s pitch-perfect broadcast will have tugged at many Scots’ humanity and even half-submerged patriotism. The governments in Edinburgh and London are largely working together in the way devolutionists intended. There hasn’t been a coordinated global response to Covid-19, but the British family has come together to look after each other.
The SNP Ain’t Scotland Part 6
