06/07 Scottish Coronavirus Briefing Thread
Will Sturgeon condemn the border bigots or will she condone them by remaining silent?

This tweet from a briefing last week was strangely prophetic... https://twitter.com/JenRoss4Scot/status/1279022155334852609?s=20

Another issue to look out for today, apart from the border bigotry is; how will she explain that not a single entrant into Scottish airports has been traced and checked for quarantine?
Makes a mockery of her insistence on keeping options open to shut out rUK to 'protect Scots'.

Also, look out for further detail on the enforcement of face coverings. They haven't released that info yet, nor who will be exempt or how it will be policed.
We might get more dog-whistling to the cult, to try and get them to police it by 'mask shaming'.

4 positive cases reported yesterday.
20 less overall in hospital.
8 in ITU
No deaths in last 48hrs.
Great progress in Scotland.

Shouldn't this mean that Scotland is ready to open up faster than other parts of the UK?

Dumfries update;
Outbreak contained.
Hopeful restrictions could be lifted tomorrow.

"On Friday, we became the first govt" to announce funding for the performing arts sector...because they knew the UK Gov were going to do it and jumped in first.

"We then called on the UK Gov to step up" and provide the same support. Tell me she isn't trying to take credit for it? What goes on in her mind that this is how she has chosen to frame it?

NS is saying the funding from UK Gov will be "passed on in full".
Will it be extra to the £10m they announced last week?
Doubtful.

Lecture Alert!
"You must co-operate and comply" and if you won't give your details "you really shouldn't bother going at all".
This is starting to feel like...

"All of us need to be patient and polite".
Thanks so much St.Nic. I didn't know that.

She's closing without any discussion of air bridges, border bigots or face masks.

Let's see what the questions are.

I have to skip Gregor, I'm sorry. His voice is so boring.

Q. Quarantine depends on high degree of trust. Is it acceptable that there have been no checks and why didn't they have the proper security clearance?

"Checks will start tomorrow"!??
It's July 6th!

"We took a decision to manage this within our own public health arrangements".
Therein lies the problem. Sounds like they didn't ask for the appropriate clearance until last week, when they realised their mistake.

Sturgeon is speaking in gobbledegook. A sure fire sign that they have made a right mess of this.

She has repeated that "we think the virus is 5x lower than the rUK".
Changed it from England this time.
Still no source.

Q. SNPTV oops I mean STV TV
Asking about the "scenes" in England of people not social distancing.
It was one street in SOHO and generally really well-managed in England.
This is a gift for her, allows her to lecture us again.

To be fair to her, she did say that it was only one or two photos and may not have been representative, however, we are still getting the lecture.

She is being asked about the border bigots finally. He's quoting Humza. Does she agree that it was racist?
"People who protested at the border don't speak for me".
"People from England are welcome in Scotland".
She has stopped short of calling them racist though.

Oh come on! She's talking about a border in Australia being closed. False equivalence and trying to weasel away from the issue.

Now that she has said that those border bigots don't speak for her and her Justice Minister has said they are not part of the movement he represents, will they have their membership of the SNP taken away?

Perhaps @jhalcrojohnston could ask if the border bigots will have their SNP membership removed. He has been strong and vocal on Twitter later. She's said they don't speak for her. Surely the only step is to rescind their membership?

Q. When will they make a decision on air bridges? "As soon as we can".
Scottish Airports are tearing their hair out.

Q. BBC Panorama are broadcasting a prog tonight about excess cancer deaths in England. Has any modelling been done by ScotGov and what is our level of referrals as in April they were down 72%?

ScotGov cancelled all cancer screening.
They are increasing the scale of urgent cancer treatment now.
Nothing is more urgent from a public health perspective in my opinion.
This is a timebomb for Scottish health.

Q. "yesterday you said reason no-one has been checked up on is because the HO hasn't given security clearance. You RT'd Bruce Crawford saying it was utterly duplicitous to suggest ScotGov didn't have procedures in place. HO says Sturgeon's claims are misleading"

The HO have said that the info needed could have been accessed by devolved gov sending a memorandum of understanding but ScotGov delayed this. The question is 'what date you begin the process'?

She says 8th June, which is late, no denying that.
Her body language is defensive, she's on the ropes.

She says "why on earth would we have wanted to delay this"? No-one is suggesting that.
The suggestion is that they were incompetent.

Q. Do you know how many people have come into Scotland without being checked?
She doesn't answer. She says there is good compliance of quarantine. She doesn't have a clue IMO.

Q. Is she concerned that border protest threatens Scotland's reputation as welcoming country? She says no, it doesn't. She doesn't approve of the protest and asks people not to do it.
She's wrong. So many English people are saying they aren't coming here after seeing it.

Q. Will the border bigots be kicked out of the party?

"I'm not going to talk about internal disciplinary arrangements." Strange answer. She says she has to take abuse and she takes responsibility for her own actions. Is she trying to absolve the party of blame? There's an easy way to do that - expel them from the Party.

My final thoughts are that tone was different today, gentler. The spin docs would not have been happy about how grumpy she was on Thurs & Fri last week. They need to be pushed on expelling those who protested at the Border. That's up to you now @Jackson_Carlaw