The coronavirus vaccine roll-out is to be hailed as a “truly astonishing achievement” of the United Kingdom by Tory Scottish Secretary Alister Jack.
The Scottish Secretary in Boris Johnson’s cabinet trumpeted the UK’s vaccination programme as the “envy of the world” and a project “on a scale that dwarfs anything since the war”.
The Minister shamelessly harnessed the success of the vaccine programme in an attempt to drive home the benefits of the Union in a speech to the online Scottish Conservative conference on Sunday.
He told the conference that Scotland is playing its part, as “millions of doses of Valneva’s vaccine are rolling off the production line at a high-tech plant in Livingston, ready for approval”.
The Tory strategy to use the vaccine as a vote winner comes as a new poll showed Boris Johnson opening up a 10 point lead over Labour in a UK-wide survey.
An Survation poll for the Sunday Mirror puts the Tories on 43 per cent to Labour’s 33 per cent on the back of what pollsters reckon is a 'vaccine boost' for the PM.
Jacktold the conference that vaccine production and distribution is “moving at such a pace that we hope every adult in the country will have received at least an initial dose of vaccine by late July”.
The Scottish Secretary further weaponised the vaccine roll-out in the constitutional battle with the SNP by heaping praise on the role the UK armed forces have played in the vaccination programme.
Jack said: “Our military personnel played a pivotal role in the planning and logistics to get vaccines where they were needed and they were literally at the sharp end, too – administering the life-saving vaccines.
“Along with thousands of key workers and volunteers, they truly are the best of British.”
The Scottish Conservative MP accused the SNP of having “told fairy stories while playing fast and loose with the rules, imperilling the very foundations of the devolution settlement”.
Jack said: “We have seen an arrogant Scottish Government, distracted by internal bickering, taking the public for fools.”
He hit out against SNP plans to hold a second Scottish independence referendum, if Nicola Sturgeon’s party wins an overall majority at May’s Holyrood election.
The Tory claimed: “It is chilling, with the monumental task of recuperating from a pandemic still ahead, that supposedly serious politicians can spend even a moment contemplating the reckless folly of another referendum.”
He contrasted this approach with that of the Conservatives, saying: “We are driving a package of measures to raise opportunity across all parts of the UK.”
Boris Johnson and Chancellor Rishi Sunak are also due to address the conference on Sunday.
