Ruth Wishart: Why indyref2 is essential, no matter what the Tories say

Honest to God, these guys are complete obsessives.

Here is Scotland trying to battle a ­pandemic, fix a damaged economy, weans with iPads instead of teachers, and ­impenetrable thickets of Brexit ­bureaucracy and the ­Tories keep talking endlessly about ­referenda. Maybe we’ll just have to give them one to shut them up. IndyRef2, ­coming soon by popular demand.

It’s an auld Tory sang, this. When ­elections come around some of their supporters, the ones who think Universal Credit is a Swiss bank, dutifully hammer the same billboard signs into their fields and generous gardens. “No to IndyRef2!” That went awfy well ­previously, so obviously time for a reprise.

Thing is, this lot really are one-trick ­ponies. They rarely have two original thoughts to rub together, which is why their Westminster lot have trooped through the lobby to support the Johnson government on numerous occasions where the legislation has hurt their own constituents, their own parliament, the poorest of the poor or all of the above.

One of their Commons number, we know, is technically the leader of the ­Scottish ­Conservatives. Technically, because his ­representative on Holyrood earth is still Ruth Davidson, the upcoming peer whose conversion to Baroness has given her roughly the same popularity as her namesake in Sound of Music. Admittedly nobody hisses when she appears, maybe because they know she’s merely passing through, biding her time till she can safely adorn the red benches.

Her Holyrood jousts with the First Minister have lately been characterised by a form of synthetic rage, most especially in those areas where her actual knowledge is on the slim side of sketchy.

The latest broadside concerned delays in getting vaccine supplies to GP surgeries, an encore of her party’s earlier demands for the head of the Cabinet Secretary for Health who committed the unpardonable sin of publishing some facts. Cue, what the First Minister suggested was a ­Westminster “hissy fit.”

It’s probably worth recalling the origins of this heap of excitable excrement. That bastion of truth telling, the Mail on Sunday, accused the Scottish government of being too slow with vaccine rollout. (This organ, not at all by the by, runs a weekly column by a certain Ruth Davidson.)

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So the Scottish Tories went into full holler mode, demanding facts and figures. Show us your stats, was the war cry of the day. Thus the Health Secretary duly ­published details of what had been ­allocated, what had been actually ­delivered, and what was expected.

Her Westminster counterpart then ­demanded she unpublish them immediately on the grounds of “commercial ­confidentiality”. Which she did.

Did this bring a blush to Scottish Tory cheeks? Not on anybody’s known Nelly. Instead they demanded our Health Secretary resign. Yup, that’s right. They ­wanted the figures. They got the figures. Then they wanted the exit of the CabSec for giving them the figures.

I’d ask you to imagine what state the vaccination programme might be in were this clueless crew at the helm, but you may still be breakfasting.

Throughout all of which, Ms Davidson, disinclined to let the facts spoil a good rammy, chose to ignore the swelling chorus of complaints from England, where GP’s were also anxious about supply lines. Their hapless health secretary’s solution to uneven jag counts, was to suggest the folk who had been racking up excellent numbers should slow down. Genius.

Though that’s not quite the description used by Sir Richard Sykes on the ­airwaves this last week, who said the problem was not one of basic supplies, but basic ­logistics.

Of course as a distinguished microbiologist, former chair of GlaxoSmithKline, sometime rector of Imperial College, and President of the British Association for the Advancement of Science, he’s clearly not a chap to whom we need pay much attention on matters virological.

Mmm. Richard Sykes, BSc, Phd, FRS, F.Med Science. Ruth Davidson MSP. Who to believe? Who to believe?

Actually, scrap that. Just think instead of the fact that the First Minister and her Health Secretary have spent the last 10 months immersed in this stuff. I suspect they might just have a clue what they’re talking about. Holding the government to account when they foul up is what good oppositions do. Picking fights for the hell of it in mid pandemic is not.

For by far the richest seam of Conservative hypocrisy is whingeing about people fiddling with the constitution whilst the NHS burns. This from the party who wrenched us out of Europe whilst the country was already on its economic knees from lockdowns. Who refused to contemplate a period of grace to take this into account. Who chucked the fishing and seafood industries under a bus at two minutes to midnight just so Boris could boast he’d got Brexit done on time.

According to those close to the negotiations, the early texts were quite long on legal detail, the last minute ones were clauses giving cobbled together a bad name. And of course this obsession over Brexit left business and industry generally unable to plan ahead since, after four stricken years, the government couldn’t actually tell them what to plan for.

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Instead as per usual, there was a flurry of expensive glossy and TV advertising, telling folks to hurry up and get their acts together since there was only days to go. As one infuriated CBI spokesman ­spluttered – get our acts together for what ­exactly?

So this band of brothers and sisters in Scotland have the unmitigated post ­Brexit gall to say now is not the time, in the midst of “all the vital issues facing Scotland” to have another referendum.

Yet it was all right, in the midst of all these vital issues facing Scotland to have the seafood industries vandalised by a Tory government who assured every business strangled by newly devised red tape that it was merely “teething problems”.

In the midst of all of which the Foreign Secretary apparently thought the smartest way to smooth ruffled European feathers was to refuse full diplomatic status for the EU’s first ambassador to the UK. I fear they may tell him precisely where to locate his red tape.

MEANTIME six jobs George Osborne, writing in his current plaything, The Standard newspaper, has a word of advice on how to keep the jocks in their box. Just don’t give them a referendum, he tells Boris. Just keep saying no.

It is emblematic of a certain kind of ­arrogance in this current Conservative cabinet that Scotland has become little more than an irritating “possession”, which has to be constantly reminded that being a “partner” in the Union, was merely a temporary rhetorical device. Something to soothe the savage breasts of these restless northern natives.

Well, here’s a news flash Georgie Boy. People in Scotland are determined on a referendum because they can’t face the thought of the Johnson administration being “in charge” of clearing up the assorted messes they’ve orchestrated, plus the fallout from the pandemic.

It’s not about constitutional tinkering, it’s about taking charge of our own destiny, “taking back control”, rather than being in frankly incompetent hands.

You know, the PM actually got lucky being described by The Donald as “Britain Trump.” It gave him a bit of cover, since he could never be accused of being as malign, malicious, and even quite as mendacious as the man in Mar a Lago.What they have in common is merely laziness, wrongheaded instincts, and a disinclination to do any homework. Not the kind of chap we need to address all these “vital issues”.