The growing crisis in the NHS has quickly become the most pressing issue for Scots over the last few weeks. Shocking new figures from yesterday reveal that 1 in 10 in A&E recently waited more than 12 hours.
This worked out at 2,506 patients, while a staggering 4,977 people waited more than eight hours. Delayed discharge rates, which are central to the crisis, are also sky high, with Nicoa Sturgeon putting the figure at 1700.
Ill patients are struggling to get admitted to hospital because folk who are ready to be discharged do not have a care package ready for them. It is also a worrying time for parents who are concerned about the impact the teachers’ strike is having on education. Councils have also been cut to the bone.
Schools and the NHS are the key services devolved to Holyrood and the full attention of MSPs should be geared towards these areas. So it was surprising, and more than a little disappointing, to see the Scottish Government debate independence on the first week back for the Parliament.
Nobody is suggesting the constitutional debate should be put into cold storage. All democrats should accept that a legal route to independence must be agreed by both sides. But independence is not a top priority at a time when the NHS is on its knees and schools are shut. Debating indyref2 could, and should, have waited.
Back in the 1990s you could always be sure of bumping into a bloke in a pub who droned on about the EU and the Maastricht Treaty. The danger for the SNP is that they too become pub bores by always turning the subject back to independence.
One of the benefits of the recent Supreme Court decision on indyref2 is that it provided clarity on jurisdiction. Judges ruled that a referendum is a reserved matter and Holyrood cannot unilaterally organise a vote on its own.
A consequence of this decision is that indyref2 should become a matter for the SNP and the wider Yes movement, rather than a Government issue funded by taxpayers. When the SNP finalises its independence strategy for the next general election, it will be done at a party conference, not round the Cabinet table. This is correct and proper.
The First Minister and her Cabinet colleagues should be devoting their entire energies as members of the Government to the cost of living crisis and collapsing public services. Independence remains an issue of huge importance to many people, but it is time the First Minister let go and allowed the wider movement she fronts to take the lead.
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