Supernanny Sturgeon

Farewell then, Nicola Sturgeon. You put Scotland on international 'public health' map, but for all the wrong reasons, as I explain in the Scottish Daily Express today...

 

At every turn, Sturgeon and her government have preferred eye-catching gestures to effective health policies. Rather than address the root causes of alcoholism, obesity and drug addiction, they have opted for punitive and performative measures designed to set Scotland apart from England.

Sturgeon’s approach to Covid-19 amounted to clinging onto lockdowns and face-masks for longer than was sensible or necessary. Every time Boris Johnson relaxed restrictions, she would make a show of keeping them for a wee while longer.

This was supposed to make it look like Sturgeon cared more about people’s health than the Tories did. In truth, it made no difference to anyone’s health and made Scotland look like a laggard.

Without Sturgeon, the SNP has an opportunity to stop Scotland being a testbed for ill-advised nanny state ideas. There is nothing about the cause for Scottish independence that requires its supporters to be puritanical killjoys. 

 

Read it all.

 

One of the advantages of making your country a guinea pig for illiberal nanny state policies is that you are almost guaranteed a well paid job in the 'public health' racket once you leave front line politics. Jane Ellison (remember her?) has been at the WHO ever since she introduced plain packaging in the UK. Gro Harlem Brundtland became director-general of the WHO as a reward for her anti-smoking activism when she was Norway's prime minister.

Sturgeon is already on Mike Bloomberg's Task Force on Fiscal Policy for Health along with former New Zealand prime minister Helen Clark. If she does step away from politics, don't bet against her becoming a super-nanny globetrotter for Bloomberg, the WHO or the Global Alcohol Policy Alliance.