DOMINIC Raab MP, the UK Justice Secretary, stated recently that the police do not investigate things that happened more than a year ago. This was news to me as I thought that was the basic premise of a police investigation. Imagine then my surprise when the Met agreed with him and said they would not be looking into the seemingly clear and flagrant breaches of Covid laws by a whole litany of Tory MPs including the Prime Minister himself.

We know that there are Tory politicians and acolytes who believe themselves to be above the law. Rules are for the little people and not to inconvenience the likes of them. And laughing about breaking the rules that we have all been following for nearly two years and then flat-out denying it in the face of incontrovertible evidence is in no way acceptable.

When is a party not a party? When a Tory MP hosts it …

There is probably some truth in that, it certainly wouldn’t be a party I would want to attend myself. But in all seriousness when people couldn’t comfort family members as they died in hospital alone or they were forced to miss births, funerals, marriages and every other special moment in loved ones’ lives over the past two years, the public outrage at these liars and charlatans is both intense and one hundred percent justified.

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What we cannot do is allow that outrage to change our approach to minimising the spread of the virus. I know it’s tempting. It’s exhausting, it’s emotional and it’s easy to tell ourselves that if they’re not prepared to stick to the precautions then we won’t either. How lovely would that be not to have to do any of it anymore?

No, how lovely WILL it be? Because we will return to some kind of normality soon enough. But we can’t give up now. Throwing caution to the wind, just because they did it, won’t give us the carefree lifestyle we crave and that they SEEM to have. It will just take even longer to get there. That’s the real crime here, casting doubt in people’s minds just because they clearly lack the intelligence to understand even their own advice. That and adding fuel to the fire of conspiracy theorists is unforgiveable.

What is just as worrying though is the apparent complicity of the Metropolitan Police in all of this. Dame Cressida Dick, Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, honoured three times by the British establishment, has decided that no investigation is required. I’m not saying there is a connection between being made a Dame Commander of the British Empire by a Conservative Party leader and deciding not to investigate a Conservative Party leader for allegedly breaking the law. But others will and of course there will be other questions.

Such as, why have ordinary members of the public been arrested and charged for the exact same offence on the exact same day? And why were the Met so keen to break up a peaceful vigil for Sarah Everard, murdered by a Met police officer, but not so keen to break up a party in Downing Street?

I must admit that there have been times where some of this would have been comical if it was not so deadly serious. The pattern of the past has become predictable: a scandal published by journalist Pippa Crerar on a Saturday, Tory patsy sent out to deny it on Sunday morning TV, further damning evidence released by Sunday afternoon.

This brings us back round to Dominic Raab, who has often been the Tory talking head telling us that we aren’t really seeing what our eyes are telling us. (What is it about Tories called Dominic and eyesight?) It might have more credibility if it wasn’t coming from a man who, as Brexit secretary, didn’t realise that the Port of Dover was

important to an island and admitted that he had not read the Good Friday Agreement.

After this stellar performance he was promoted to foreign secretary and decided to stay on holiday while UK nationals were airlifted out of Kabul and thousands of desperate Afghans were left behind.

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Now that he has been appointed Justice Secretary, I imagine I will be kept busy in my role as SNP justice spokesperson in holding him to account. This is a man who, when asked if he was a feminist, said “probably not” – this is a man (yes man) who claimed that men could somehow experience misogyny, a man who, as I said at the start, claimed that the police don’t investigate crimes committed in the past.

Now does that sound like the sort of person who would end up Justice Secretary in a government? I’m afraid with this particular government, it does. And he did.

I shouldn’t complain really, they say that every time these entitled Tory politicians open their mouths another 10 undecided people in Scotland resolve to vote Yes in the next independence referendum. Next year will be a big one for independence campaigning and we will all be cranking it up several gears, no matter what the polls say. I do sometimes wonder, however, if these Tories will end up doing most of the work for us.

That’s why it matters that myself and my SNP colleagues in Westminster are there. We have to keep shining a light on what goes on down there, not least because the people of Scotland need to be very clear about the alternative to independence. It’s not good and it’s only fair that we make sure they know just how bad it is.