Nicola Sturgeon’s Covid prohibition

So now we know the threshold at which Nicola Sturgeon pulls the trigger. If the number of daily hospital admissions for Covid-19 exceeds a tenth of the number recorded at the April peak, she will lay waste to the hospitality industry. From Friday, all pubs and licensed restaurants in Greater Glasgow and Clyde, Lanarkshire, Forth Valley, Lothian and Ayrshire and Arran – where two-thirds of Scots live – will be forced to shut their doors for at least sixteen days. So too will snooker clubs, casinos, bowling alleys and bingo halls.

In the rest of Scotland, pubs and restaurants will be allowed to serve food and soft drinks – but not alcohol – until 6pm. Cafés which don’t have an alcohol licence can also stay open until 6pm. Hotel restaurants will be permitted to open beyond 6pm but only for residents and, again, only without alcohol.

Who knows where the Scottish government’s war on drinking ends and its war on Covid-19 begins, but it is not difficult to see an element of Presbyterian zeal in Sturgeon’s latest crackdown.