Scotland’s Mean Girls election

Presented for whatever is the opposite of your edification, an exchange between the leaders of Scotland’s main political parties.

The setting is Tuesday night’s Holyrood election hustings, hosted via Zoom by the National Union of Students. We begin with Nicola Sturgeon accusing Scottish Conservative leader Douglas Ross of being inconsistent on who gets credit for the Covid vaccination programme in Scotland.

Nicola Sturgeon: Make your mind up.

Douglas Ross: No, I was saying your rollout was poor. Your rollout was poor.

NS: But the point is, the UK chose to—

DR: But answer the question—

NS: —procure in the way that it did and you’re saying it couldn’t have done that and Scotland couldn’t have chosen to do that with the other UK nations had we been a member of the EU. That is quite simply not true. We procured the vaccine in the same way, every year, as we procure the flu vaccine, and you don’t need to tell me how many people have been vaccinated with the first dose, I spend every day overseeing the programme.