Frank Gilfeather: She’s at her lectern daily – missing the big picture

I can see the posters: “Not coming to a town near you anytime soon: first minister super-glued to Covid lectern”.

While I make no attempt to underplay the importance of the daily briefings on coronavirus and their impact on Scotland, must it be Nicola Sturgeon who delivers them every time?

Doesn’t Scotland have a health secretary anymore? Or a public health minister?

Does anybody know the name of Scotland’s communities and local government chief?

Do you remember there is also deputy leader, who goes by the name John Swinney?

Is her insistence on taking centre stage an indication that she doesn’t trust any of her team to do the job properly?

With a new five-tier approach to local lockdowns in Scotland to be introduced from November 2, it affords the first minister the opportunity to show those areas largely unaffected by the virus that she has an exit strategy in place for them.

Near normality isn’t far away, she could tell them.

Aberdeen and its environs, where Covid-19 cases are a little over 3,000, comes into that category.

But can we be sure the first minister is already looking that far ahead?

It has taken Nicola Sturgeon long enough to recognise the regions of Scotland are vastly different from each other.

Her gut reaction, for example, to shut down Aberdeen in August, from which it has not recovered, would have been acceptable had she imposed similar restrictions on Glasgow weeks later when it, too, broke the rules.

All she did, however, was underline what many non-SNP politicians in Aberdeen have been saying for years: “Sturgeon doesn’t like us.”

If the new system allows bottom tier areas to return to near normality and resuscitate their economies, particularly in the hospitality sector, why not allow the north-east, where business rates were the highest in Scotland, to regroup and show there is a way ahead?

It would be a bold, some might say low-risk, and imaginative step. Is she brave enough to take it?

It’s time the first minister extricated herself from those “lights, camera, action” scenarios – surely someone else can look after her lectern for a day or two? – and visited our towns and cities to engage with local authority leaders.

Their knowledge of their areas is important and their ideas need to be heard.

Alas, Ms Sturgeon has shown she is not a listener, although she must be held to her declaration that, if as she says, “I will have the final say on restrictions” then, indeed, “the buck stops with me”.

Forget the virus, make sure meat has Saltire

Sometimes it’s the little things in life that remind you how bonkers our leaders (paid with our taxes) and their sycophants (paid with our taxes) can be while working on our behalf.

Take the story of Kate Higgins, for example.

She has been described as Nicola Sturgeon’s top adviser, which means she has a certain degree of clout at Holyrood.

So, in the midst of the Covid crisis, Ms Higgins instructed civil servants (paid with our taxes) to drill down on the use of the Union flag on the packaging of Scotch Beef in supermarkets.

“It’s not on,” she insisted.

Not the most compelling of issues, you might think, for a government; unless you are a supporter of the SNP.

Sir Ian Wood’s proclamation on BBC’s Question Time a week ago that the SNP’s actual job was to look after the Scottish people and not simply to focus on one objective – independence – hit the nail on the head.

And, just as I have stated in this column many times that we’ve been let down by devolution, Sir Ian was right to assert that Scotland is “being held back” by its devolved government.

Ms Sturgeon has a goal in mind.

Meanwhile, her leading aide will continue to monitor the freezers and shelves of Scotland’s supermarkets for any signs of British flags on their Scottish products.

What’s behind dons’ closed doors?

Will we ever get to the bottom of the Scottish Government’s refusal to allow a thousand fans into Pittodrie for Sunday’s Premiership fixture against Celtic?

Surely such a small number, distanced and masked in an outdoor 20,000-seater stadium, would have been acceptable.

So when people in and around Aberdeen FC claim the decision is political, what do they mean?

“They just don’t like football,” one insider told me.

We’re in the dark.

What we do know, however, is that showing the proposal the red card is puzzling.