Welsh Tories are misreading the mood on Covid

Responding to the Covid-19 pandemic has imposed great strains on governments and leading politicians. But, initially at least, the reaction of publics in much of the world was a supportive one; in a time of peril, many of them ‘rallied to the flag’.

In some places, though, it was not entirely clear to which flag people should rally. Where there are devolved or regional governments of different parties to the national government, it was not obvious who might benefit from any public goodwill – or later on, from a possible backlash if the public judged government handling of the crisis to be inadequate.

In Scotland, the evidence thus far seems to suggest that – whatever mistakes the SNP government there has made in the handling of Covid – the crisis has nonetheless played strongly to the political advantage of Nicola Sturgeon and her party.