Buzz Sturgeon goes ‘to infinity and beyond' with new level of posturing - John McLellan

To Level Zero and Beyond. Our very own Buzz Lightyear, First Minister Nicola Sturgeon, is scanning the horizon for danger on our behalf, so there is no Freedom Day on Monday but Beyond level Zero, or Level Minus One or whatever you want to call it. Roll on Level Minus Two.

First Minister Nicola Sturgeon is seeing and seizing political opportunity as the Covid crisis abates, says John McLellan. (Picture: Andy Buchanan - Pool/Getty Images)

One more weekend of rules no-one can remember, but after Monday if you go for a drink you’ll still have to wear a mask, give your telephone, blood group and family tree, and don’t think about standing at the bar. Like something from the court of Louis XIV, nightclub dancing will be the modern, louder equivalent of a masked ball.

One more weekend of having to pre-book to watch a sparsely attended open-air sports fixture after you’ve strolled unchecked into Asda, or standing knee-deep in nettles to avoid terrorising fellow dog walkers who fear your breath is potentially dripping with the new, deadly Epsilon variant of Covid.

Now, after nearly 18 months of restrictions and false dawns until the damn virus mutated every time we thought we had it beat, the end is approaching, or at least what will feel like the end compared to the extremes of the first two lockdowns.

But nothing is certain. Can cinemas, theatres, and restaurants, and indeed sports clubs, operate profitably? If “vertical drinking” remains banned, it casts doubt on the viability of many bars and the city centre economy still has a long way to go when working from home is still the official default and international tourism is as confusing as ever.

The individual impact of bereavement and long Covid apart, the effects of the crisis will be with us for many months to come.

As Buzz Sturgeon scans the landscape for signs of economic life, so too is it finely tuned for political opportunity. As the pandemic recedes and the emergency life-support systems gradually turned off, those opportunities are multiplying.

Apart from the stunt of her last-minute invitation for Boris Johnson to attend a meeting at Bute House he was never going to accept, she laid out the strategy for the coming months in a twin demand for the furlough job support scheme to be extended and the £20 Universal Credit uplift to be made permanent.

“Make the uplift to Universal Credit permanent… to do anything else would simply be unforgivable,” she said this week, knowing full well the UK Government won’t foot the resulting £6bn bill, any more than her government could find the £500m it would cost in Scotland.

She knows the Bank of England’s magic money tree looks like it will continue to be watered with quantitative easing at least until the effects of the furlough wind-up are known, so when the Bank’s monetary policy committee meets tomorrow it’s very unlikely QE will be halted or interest rates increased.

But the Bank of England must stop churning out cash like it’s the Weimar Republic at some point soon. As the UK Government won’t agree to massive permanent spending increases, the opportunity is there for the SNP to argue the big spending should continue as it builds up to an autumn conference likely to be dominated by the resuscitation of the independence campaign.

Who knew Buzz Lightyear’s ‘to infinity and beyond catchphrase’ was also the SNP policy?

-John McLellan is the Conservative councillor for Craigentinny and Duddingston

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