It has been an explosive couple of weeks at Holyrood (the devolved Scottish Parliament), as Nicola Sturgeon and Alex Salmond testified before a special parliamentary inquiry, pitting current and former Scottish National Party (SNP) First Ministers against one another. Representing rival factions of the party’s upper echelons, the personal break between Sturgeon and Salmond over the latter’s inappropriate conduct has had deep political implications.

A number of countries in Europe halted the use of the AstraZeneca/Oxford University vaccine over the past two weeks, due to an unproven association with blood clots. Following a review by the European Medical Agency, they have now resumed, but this politically driven decision has seriously dented public confidence in the vaccine, which was already low.