The need for the light shone by this country’s free, independent Press is as great as its ever been - John McLellan

Just when we all thought we had this Covid thing beat, as hospital numbers remained resolutely low and whole districts of Edinburgh still showed the virus being suppressed, up comes a new variant which, we are assured, will rip through the population faster than ever.

Life support for news publishing will remain vital as the economy takes a further hit, says John McLellan

In the space of a weekend it was not just back to Square One – that was when we didn’t realise lockdown would last for months or thousands would die – but worse, because we know the shop shutters will not rise, businesses will close and jobs will be lost in their thousands before enough people are vaccinated. Full recovery is years away.

I’m not sure how much we have learnt in the last nine months, apart from the ability to put up with the severest restrictions to our liberties any of us have experienced, that presentation matters more than substance when it comes to political leadership, and that few places have as highly developed a blame culture as Scotland.

In the last week have learnt that despite the stern warnings and the soaring approval ratings, First Minister Nicola Sturgeon is just as capable as the rest of us of either forgetting the complicated Covid rules she imposes, or deciding a wee bending here or there will harm no-one.

And after Ms Sturgeon accepted there was nowhere to hide over Scotland’s appalling drug death record, two apologies in a week could become habit-forming.

Christmas is supposed to be a time of hope; if you are a believer it’s a celebration of the moment when a new kind of love entered the world, and even those like me who have no faith understand the sense of belonging it creates. Thousands journey to be with their families like the biblical return to Bethlehem, except this Christmas the forces of law aren’t ordering people back to their home towns for a headcount, but the opposite.

Even under the severest lockdown of the spring we didn’t have Police Scotland announcing a doubling of patrols along the English border. What’s next, sangars and watchtowers like South Armagh?

The one thing we should have learnt this year is that just as our liberties can vanish as soon as a politician’s palms are plaintively upturned, the maintenance of accessible, independent and trustworthy news platforms to hold the powerful to account for their actions has never been more vital.

Thankfully, both the UK and Scottish governments recognised a free Press is as important for maintaining their credibility as it is for public scrutiny, because without independent affirmation the public is less likely to fall into line so willingly. Both accepted that travel restrictions shouldn’t prevent reporters doing their jobs, and that economic shutdown meant the evaporation of revenues so kept official advertising flowing to reach millions of readers.

As tighter lockdown crushes the economy into the Spring and beyond, life support for independent news publishing is as vital as it is for other industries and support must continue.

Trips to Barnard Castle or the East Neuk of Fife, the mass downgrading of school assessments, the drugs epidemic, the closure of streets without notice and forgetting to mask up at social gatherings show, as the saying goes, the need for light is never greater than in times of darkness.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​