Queensferry Crossing Animated 3D Computer Model

An animated 3D computer model of the Queensferry Crossing as viewed from a viewpoint which circles around the bridge model.

The initial purpose was to confirm at a glance that the cable data and methodologies used to calculate cable length (which data I need for my electrical cable-heating design) were accurate or at least plausible.

Acknowledgements – Transport Scotland for providing (eventually) PDFs with the geometric data for the cables. Google Sheets to type the data into a spreadsheet. Desmos Graphing Calculator for their regression tool to fit catenary equation curves to the cable data. GeoGebra maths tools to build the 3D model.  OBS Studio to capture the slow motion animation. VideoPad Video Editor for speeding up the animation. YouTube for hosting the video. WordPress for hosting this blog.

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Peaceful assembly is a right that the law should FACILITATE, not criminalise

I’m commenting upon this story in today’s P&J.

Press & Journal: Aberdeen indy march organiser to face criminal trial over accusations safeguards were not sought

Peaceful assembly is a right that the law, the police and the courts should facilitate, not criminalise, nor witch-hunt, nor act as the jealous SNP’s Gestapo.

Apparently, the SNP leadership hates the very idea of someone other than themselves, the SNP leadership, organising a pro-independence event.

Apparently, the SNP leadership have decided to make an example of the All Under One Banner march organisers and the Scottish Government have tasked, by a nod and a wink, the Crown Office to prosecute Gary Kelly.

Why? Simply because the SNP leadership tell lies – they don’t actually support “independence for Scotland or for Scots”.

What the SNP leadership do support is independence for themselves as a Scottish government to dictate to and to enslave Scots, to take Scots as political prisoners whenever they feel hatred towards someone for expressing their own political views, which the SNP leadership can easily do as the devolved government of Scotland, because the Queen lets her ministers do whatever the hell they want to do and that’s why Sturgeon is so happy to welcome the Queen to Scotland or indeed to Holyrood.

So we are seeing another example of the Crown Office acting as the SNP’s Gestapo, which is particularly outrageous in this case considering what a great success the march for independence in Aberdeen in August 2019, which I was at, was, as I reported at this time in my blog.

Peter Dow, August 2019, March for Scottish Independence

There was no problem that I could see with any of the march and so it looks very much like politically motivated and vindictive for the SNP Scottish Government to misuse the Crown Office to try to take as political prisoner the organiser of that march. This is not in the public interest. This is very much against the public interest, in my opinion.

Sturgeon has recently appointed the SNP Deputy Leader, Keith Brown, as Justice Secretary.

Keith “Brownshirt” Brown

All Under One Banner had been prosecuted before now while Humza Yousaf was Justice Secretary and Useless said nothing to help justice –
The National – Independence march organiser jailed for 72 days over Glasgow event
– and it looks like prosecuting Scottish independence march organisers is Brownshirt’s idea of “Justice” too.

Prosecutions are not the direct responsibility of the Justice Secretary but of the Lord Advocate. We know that James Wolffe is stepping down but the Scots urgently need a Lord Advocate with the wisdom to act in the public interest, someone like Aamer Anwar, for example.

However, the Justice Secretary has a duty to speak out and say when a prosecution is manifestly unjust, malicious or politically motivated, as this prosecution certainly is. Yousaf failed in his duty and now Brown is failing in his duty too.

The SNP leadership are increasingly misbehaving in government as Quisling Nazis, loyal to the Queen but disloyal to the people of Scotland who elected them to represent us, not enslave us.

I call on the First Minister to release ALL of her political prisoners, please.

DON’T be a Nazi, First Minister. It doesn’t suit you, or the Scots.

To all MSPs: Please help free political prisoners in Scotland

Dear MSP,

Congratulations on your election (or re-election).

Perhaps it was easy enough for you to avoid being taken political prisoner on this occasion? All you had to do was to swear or to affirm your allegiance to the Queen.

Had you refused to do so as a matter of political conscience, you could have been arrested as a political prisoner, not today, but after a couple of months of turning up to the Scottish Parliament and refusing to utter those required words.

For others in Scotland, it is not so easy to avoid being taken political prisoner, being held in a police cell or in one of Her Majesty’s Prisons. It’s not easy for those of us with a sense of duty to the truth, to our conscience, to keep quiet when we feel we should speak up or write and publish, perhaps to save the life of someone who is not the Queen but whose life is worth just as much.

I would very much appreciate you doing all you can as an MSP to ensure that the Scottish Government does its duty to make sure that the police, prosecutors and courts do not take any more political prisoners and release those they have already taken as political prisoners.

The Scottish Parliament budgets about £3 billion a year for “public order and safety” but not all of that money is properly spent. Some of that money is misspent on the taking of political prisoners, some of whom are scientists, like me.

It is important for MSPs to speak out against the taking of political prisoners, to say that it is “unjust”.

MSPs cannot credibly duck their collective political responsibility for the actions of the police, prosecutors and courts in Scotland, ruled as part of the United Kingdom of the monarch to whom you have all just expressed your allegiance to, governed by the Scottish Government whose First Minister MSPs elect.

I note that only the other day that Whistleblower Craig Murray Sentenced To 8 Months In Prison Over His Reporting On Former Scottish First Minister’s Trial.

I had little interest in that trial as it seemed to me to be a bit of a Punch and Judy contest played out in the courts between the former and current First Minister, a politically motivated prosecution, but my interest has now been attracted by the court’s expressed intention to take a political prisoner and for a term of imprisonment far longer than anything I have ever had to endure, as I document on my Political Defence Blog.

The contempt of court finding of Craig Murray is all, so the lawyers say, something to do with “Jigsaw Identification” but I put the pieces of the political puzzle together in such a way as to hold to account the First Minister for her misgovernment that is allowing the taking of political prisoners.

Play the “Jigsaw Identification” puzzle!

The jigsaw image to put together is this one.

Some of the text of my email sent this afternoon to all Members of the Scottish Parliament, newly elected in May 2021.

Queensferry Crossing stay cable strands – insulating timetable

Transport Scotland’s recent release to me 😀 of the details of the number of strands in each stay cable of the Queensferry Crossing allows me now to update my “Restranding Timetable” to allow the strands to be electrically insulated so as to carry a heating current for de-icing purposes.

The number of strands in the bridge	21,186	100%
To be replaced with a new longer strand	440	2%
Replace with an old strand from a longer cable	7,764	37%
To be left as now	12,982	61%

Insulating Timetable South Tower Stay Cables

Click for high resolution

Insulating Timetable Centre Tower Stay Cables

Click for high resolution

Insulating Timetable North Tower Stay Cables

Click for high resolution

Note that the south and north towers stay cables would take longer to insulate / re-strand because the bridge designers apparently specified that those towers’ shortest, most vertical, most efficient cables with the easiest work-load should paradoxically use the strongest of the bridge’s stay cables.

Being shorter those cables are better re-stranded last so that they may re-use strands replaced from longer cables.

The centre tower stay cables seem to be designed more as expected from a structural engineering science point of view. I’m curious as to why the discrepancy?

Bridge Stay Cable Electrical-Heating Strand Calculator

I’ve written this spreadsheet to calculate the specifications for the electrical power supplies to heat the strands of stay cables of the Queensferry Crossing or of other bridges prone to icing with similar cables of an arbitrary number of strands up to 109 strands.
This is a screenshot – click to view a high-resolution image.

Download QFC Electrically-heated Cables. It’s an Excel .xlsx file but it was developed in Google Sheets (for free!). I don’t have Excel on my computer so it has never been tested in Excel. If it doesn’t work on Excel then try uploading it to Google sheets. That should work but any problems let me know

Email: peterdowaberdeen@gm…….

and if necessary I can let you share my Google sheets version with viewer access which I can authorise to any Gmail account and then you can copy it directly into your Google sheets file space.

Instructions

Select a strands sheet with the closest number of strands to the cable you want to calculate for, choosing between 45, 55, 73, 91 or 109 strands. Best to duplicate the sheet for back-ups.

The strands arrangement is represented by coloured cells where the cell formula calculates that strand’s heating capacity.

To re-arrange and / or change the number of strands, first drag off the strand circles overlay image then add strands by selecting an existing strand cell, Edit Copy (ctrl-C) then select another coloured cell for the new strand and Edit – Paste special – Paste formula only. To remove a strand just delete the formula from its coloured cell.

To use the Strands calculator spreadsheet with data for another bridge, you will have to edit or create a new “Cable Data” sheet with the new data and modify the strands calculator sheets’ (hidden) cell X61 so that it fetches the cable data from the new sheet with the appropriate table range.

The vaccine roll-out is too slow. Let’s increase vaccine supply with new production facilities.

@mmgeissler
Not "only a" but an INTERMINABLE "couple of months into the vaccination programme" which could and should have vaccinated the entire UK population by now if vaccine production and supply had been ramped up appropriately considering the urgency of the pandemic.

— Peter Dow (@AberdeenDow) February 23, 2021

The governments should greatly accelerate the production and supply of the Oxford-AstraZeneca Covid-19 vaccine (which seems to be the best of the 2 from the Public Health Scotland supported research into vaccine performance in Scotland) under license by investing in new facilities, including one here in Scotland to make say +250,000 doses/day for Scots initially then for export.

Please support my call for a new 250,000 doses/day vaccine production facility in Scotland – with further doses to be exported after all Scots have been fully vaccinated.

Then, whenever any new variant virus threatens, Scotland will be well prepared to roll out the booster vaccine very quickly and avoid lockdown!

“as supply allows”

I’ve just fired off another email about this.

Call for a new 250,000 doses/day vaccine production facility in Scotland

I write to complain about the poor quality reply from the Scottish Government’s civil servant Charles Willis, Reference: 202100164087, 28 February 2021 … because it suggests that neither Mr Willis nor anyone else in the Scottish government have yet competently considered the content of my email to you all, ….

“as supply allows” writes Mr Willis, as if the Scottish Government can have no agency whatsoever with a view to increasing its own supply of vaccine doses, as if the vaccine is handed down from on high, courtesy of the UK. “Take what you get. Never question how much or why. Just be grateful.”

How pathetic. How disgusting.

Mr Willis may be a helpless civil servant but it is unacceptable to this proud Scot to suffer the Scottish government to be represented in such a pitiful and beggarly fashion.

Who reading my emails can respond intelligently to my suggestion that the Scottish government should plan to increase its supply of vaccines from its present limited supply, seemingly varying from 10,000 to 60,000 but averaging perhaps 20,000 doses/day?

Who reading this can respond to my suggestion that the Scottish government should invest in a new vaccine production facility in Scotland, in partnership with AstraZeneca, that can produce 250,000 doses/day?

The Scottish government have, so far, vaccinated only 1/4 of the population of Scotland and 3/4 of the population are still waiting, still dying of Covid, some of us, because we’ve not been vaccinated yet when we should have been.

Please support my call for a new 250,000 doses/day vaccine production facility in Scotland – with further doses to be exported after all Scots have been fully vaccinated.

With such a newly built vaccine production facility here in Scotland then whenever any new variant virus threatens, Scotland will be well prepared to roll out the booster vaccine very quickly and avoid lockdown!

Scotland needs a faster supply of vaccine doses. The world needs a faster supply of vaccine doses. Scotland can produce a great supply of vaccine doses if the Scottish government gets its act together and stops being content to be a by-stander while others outside Scotland arrange for a very limited supply of vaccine doses for us on Scotland’s behalf.

Do not dare to stand idly by while others supply us with the vaccines we need. Scotland must become a supplier of vaccine doses, for ourselves, to export for others.

Do not dare to think “we can’t”.

We are Scots.

Yes we can!

That’s got them telt! 😎

Valneva Livingston

28th January 2021. GOV.UK Large-scale coronavirus vaccine manufacturing begins in Scotland

“Speciality vaccine company Valneva has started commercial manufacturing of its promising COVID-19 vaccine candidate in Livingston, West Lothian, Scotland. …

If the vaccine proves successful and receives regulatory approval following a rigorous assessment of available data, the Livingston facility will have the capacity to produce up to 250 million doses annually for shipment across the UK and around the world.”

If approved that would be up to 685,000 doses per day supplied from Valneva Livingston. Shared among the UK population equally that would be 56,000 doses per day for Scots.

56k/day is good, it would be a most welcome supplement to the existing limited vaccine supply stream in Scotland but I must ask if that would that be enough to allow for the fastest possible roll-out of a booster vaccine should the need arise?

It should be possible to vaccinate 250,000 Scots per day and to administer one dose to every Scot in about 3 weeks, ready to offer 2nd doses as required.

So my opinion is that the gold standard supply for Scotland would be met by 250,000 doses/day and that’s why I have called for a new 250,000 doses/day vaccine production facility in Scotland, set up in partnership with AstraZeneca and funded by the Scottish Government so that the entire output could be prioritised for Scots if required.

“Vaccine nationalism?” Well maybe but that soon becomes vaccine internationalism after Scots have been vaccinated because all that additional vaccine production can then be dedicated for export.

By the same argument, the gold standard supply for the whole UK would be 3 million doses/day – 3 times more than the 1 million doses/day that the UK Government seems to have satisfied itself with.

This is not the time to rest on our vaccine laurels.

Vaccine Rollout Performance Standards for Scotland & the UK

Scotland: Vaccinations per day

Gold Standard

Scotland – 246,000/day, UK – 3,000,000/day or more

Silver Standard

Scotland – 164,000/day, UK – 2,000,000/day or more

Bronze Standard

Scotland – 82,000/day, UK – 1,000,000/day or more

D Grade

Scotland – 400,000/week, UK – 700,000/day or more

UPDATE

BBC: Covid: Under-30s offered alternative to AstraZeneca jab

Recent developments require me to review the assumption I made in February, that the Oxford-AstraZeneca Covid-19 vaccine “seems to be the best of the 2 from the Public Health Scotland supported research into vaccine performance in Scotland”.

It is reasonable to take a fresh look at the other candidate vaccines if investing in a new vaccine production facility here in Scotland.

Epidemiologist says it’s NOT safe for Scottish pupils to go back to school

VIDEO: Sunday, 21st February 2021. BBC Scotland. Sunday Show presented by Martin Geissler. Professor Linda Bauld, from Edinburgh University, a public health expert, says we must maintain the public health measures we’ve been living with. Dr Deepti Gurdasani, an epidemiologist (MPhil University of Cambridge) explains that it is not yet safe for Scottish pupils to go back to school until additional internationally accepted mitigation methods are in place.

I agree with the points made by Dr Deepti Gurdasani, obviously.

The Scottish Government’s so-called “National Clinical Director for Scotland” Jason Leitch is indeed wrong, again and remains out of his depth, as I have explained in an earlier blog post. Children are just as likely to get or pass on the virus – just more often asymptomatically than adults to whom they pass the virus on. Kids can get infected at school and then go home to infect their older family members who then suffer symptoms etc.

Blame the Scottish Government minister John “the Swindler” Swinney – whose complacent remarks to Martin Geissler were not worth repeating here – and blame too his boss Nicola “Killer Krankie” Sturgeon for the Scottish Government’s poorly prepared and premature school re-opening which will cost lives and threaten to resurge the pandemic in Scotland.

Mitigation methods

Mitigation methods suggested by Dr Gurdasani.

• Mask use for primary school children
• Ventilation
• Air filtration / purification devices
• Carbon dioxide monitors
• Smaller class and bubble sizes
• Teachers mustn’t move between bubbles

Mitigation method suggested by Peter Dow

• Indoor ultra violet lights to help inactivate airborne viruses
• UV protective wear – sunglasses, sunscreen lotion, hats etc.

The Queensferry Crossing Accounts – the missing £ millions

Suspiciously, I haven’t found the itemised accounts for all £1.34 billion of the total project cost in Audit Scotland’s Main Report PDF – “Forth Replacement Crossing”.

There appears to be £460 million in unaccounted-for spending!

What has happened to the missing £ millions?
Overcharged?
Embezzled?
The public do have a right to know!

The Queensferry Crossing Accounts

Email reply received from Transport Scotland, 19th January 2021.

Transport Scotland Queensferry Crossing Yearly Accounts

So many of the missing £ millions are VAT but that still leaves £219 million + VAT on Employer’s Direct Costs. Seems rather a lot of money to pay Transport Scotland civil servants to answer emails. 🙄

Email reply received from Transport Scotland, 15th February 2021.

Transport Scotland Queensferry Crossing Employer Costs

COVID-19 Recovery Taxes

The more an activity risks spreading COVID-19, the more that activity should be taxed.

AIR PASSENGER DUTY

Air Passenger Duty should be massively increased considering that air travel was the way that COVID-19 was initially spread from China and air-travel can reintroduce COVID-19 to an area defeating all previous lockdown measures to eradicate the virus locally. A Scottish Air Passenger Duty should be charged for all flights into Scotland, including from the rest of the UK.

END ALL SUPPORT FOR THE INTERNATIONAL TRAVEL INDUSTRY

End rates relief, furlough payments for any company involved with the international travel industry – airports, airlines, cruise and passenger shipping, travel agents, bus and train services to England.

Cease government funding for Visit Scotland unless it changes its name to “DON’T Visit Scotland” and campaigns to keep tourists out for the duration of the pandemic. End any subsidy and support for all international festivals – such as the Edinburgh Festival and Fringe.

If this drives companies out of business then that is a price worth paying to discourage international travel to Scotland for the duration of the pandemic.

LOCAL ROAD PASSENGER DUTY

A Local Road Passenger Duty would encourage people to change their behaviour to stay local and not spread COVID-19 around because they would be taxed more the further they travel around in Scotland.

A Local Road Passenger Duty should be payable by vehicle owners, calculated as a base charge (£10 for example but the actual amount would be set in the Scottish budget) multiplied in proportion to the number of passenger seats (not including the driver’s seat) in the vehicle multiplied by the number of Scottish council areas the vehicle is taxed to drive in.

Local councils would collect the Local Road Passenger Duty, issue tax-paid display stickers and be responsible for detecting that the vehicles using their local roads had paid the Local Road Passenger Duty to use their local roads.

Example 1.

An owner of a car with 3 passenger seats lives in one council area, drives to work in a neighbouring council area and occasionally visits family by travelling through 2 additional council areas.

The Local Road Passenger Duty Tax is payable in proportion to 3 passenger seats x 4 council areas = 3 x 4 = 12 times the base charge of £10 = £120.

Example 2.

An owner of a car with 3 passenger seats which is only driven locally within the one council area.

The Local Road Passenger Duty is payable in proportion to 3 passenger seats x 1 council area = 3 x 1 = 3 times the base charge of £10 = £30.

Example 3.

An owner of a bus with 40 passenger seats runs a passenger service between 4 council areas.

The Local Road Passenger Duty is payable in proportion to 40 passenger seats x 4 council areas = 40 x 4 = 160 times the base charge of £10 so the bus owner is taxed £1,600.

The high tax for this bus service is appropriate for the danger it represents of spreading COVID-19 around.

Example 4.

A delivery van has one passenger seat and could be delivering to any of 20 council areas.

The Local Road Passenger Duty is payable in proportion to 1 passenger seat x 20 council areas = 1 x 20 = 20 times the base charge of £10 so the delivery van owner is taxed £200.

Example 5.

A taxi driver/owner has a taxi with 5 passenger seats and offers a taxi service to 6 council areas.

The Local Road Passenger Duty is payable in proportion to 5 passenger seats x 6 council areas = 5 x 6 = 30 times the base charge of £10 so the taxi owner is taxed £300.

Example 6.

A sports-fans’ mini-bus has 8 passengers seats and needs to travel through 12 local council areas to get to fixtures.

The Local Road Passenger Duty is payable in proportion to 8 passenger seats x 12 council areas = 8 x 12 = 96 times the base charge of £10 so the mini bus owner is taxed 96 x £10 = £960.

Example 7.

A motorcycle has one pillion passenger seat and travels to 7 council areas.

The Local Road Passenger Duty is payable in proportion to 1 passenger seat x 7 council areas = 1 x 7 = 7 times the base charge of £10 so the motorcycle owner is taxed 7 x £10 = £70.

Example 8.

A moped has no passenger seat and so the owner is exempted from paying any Local Road Passenger Duty on the moped.

RAIL PASSENGER DUTY

Rail passengers can spread COVID-19 around so train owners should be taxed Rail Passenger Duty for their trains too, according to the number of passenger seats times the number of council areas the train stops in.

FERRY PASSENGER DUTY

Same.  Tax ferry owners Ferry Passenger Duty according to the number of ferry passenger seats times the number of council areas the ferry stops in. The ferry owner is not responsible for paying any Ferry Passenger Duty for the passenger seats in any cars transported by the ferry.

Why tax passenger seats not actual passengers

It is a lot easier for the tax collector to count the number of passenger seats in a vehicle than the number of passengers.

QUARANTINE FOR SCOTLAND CHARGES

I have published “Quarantine for Scotland” detailing the organisation of new managed facilities for compulsory quarantine for all travellers to Scotland. Charges to pay for all that should be levied on those who have to use those new quarantine facilities because they are choosing to travel to Scotland, deliver to Scotland, or leave then return to Scotland etc.

MAKE THE UK PAY COMPENSATION DAMAGES TAX

Scotland should win the power to tax, fine or get legal compensation from the UK for the economic damage done by its mismanagement of the Covid-19 pandemic and historically.

For decades, from Ravenscraig to Longannet, the UK has pursued the deindustrialisation of Scotland and left Scots with a reliance on tourism which has made Scotland’s economy particularly vulnerable to a pandemic.

Perhaps compensation of £100s billions to be paid to Scotland by the UK could be agreed but if not then the Scottish Parliament must win the powers to impose taxes on all UK officials who visit or live in Scotland so as to collect the compensation owed to Scotland from UK officials individually.

By “UK officials” I mean people like the Queen, Prince Charles, Prince William, Princess Anne, the UK Prime Minister and Cabinet members, Members of the Queen’s Privy Council, BBC senior management, Police Chiefs, UK Supreme Court Judges, Generals, members of the House of Lords etc.

Any of those UK officials who will not or cannot pay compensation damages taxes imposed should be excluded from Scotland for non-payment of their tax debts.

SCOTTISH GOVERNMENT FISCAL POWERS

The Scottish Parliament and Scottish Government have insufficient fiscal powers, specifically  government borrowing powers, to invest to re-purpose the Scottish economy to cope with any significant economic challenge such as this Covid-19 emergency.

The Scottish government should be granted the power to borrow interest-free from the Bank of England / UK Treasury, with no repayments and no total debt limits, up to 8% of Scottish GDP.

This new Scottish government borrowing power should be permanent so that it could be used either to cope with an emergency like this pandemic or in normal times used to invest for economic growth.

If the UK refuses such new £ Sterling borrowing powers to the Scottish government then the Scottish Parliament should pass legislation to establish a new Scottish currency and Scottish central bank to manage our new currency, thereby enabling the Scottish government the normal borrowing powers of a government to borrow its own currency as required.

I might suggest that the name of a new Scottish currency should be
THE SCOTTISH POUND BANNOCKBURN

WHAT FISCAL RULES SHOULD THE SCOTTISH GOVERNMENT FOLLOW?

The Scottish government should never again do as it did in 2016 and ever since, namely so foolishly to agree with the UK to such a bad deal £ fiscal framework which imposed such derisory limits to the Scottish government’s borrowing powers.

The 2016 Fiscal Framework Agreement was an act of self-harm by the Scottish government and Scottish parliament and so this terrible mistake must never be repeated or allowed again.

The rule should be –
DON’T DARE TO OFFER OR ACCEPT LESS THAN 8% GDP £ SCOTTISH GOVERNMENT BORROWING POWERS OR ELSE SCOTS WILL SET UP OUR OWN CURRENCY.

Anticipating that the UK will break that rule, the Scottish Parliament and Scottish Government should expect to proceed to establish a new Scottish currency forthwith.

CONSULTATION RESPONSE

This blog post is by way of reply to the Scottish Government consultation –

Budget 2021/22: Supporting the COVID-19 Recovery

My actual response to that consultation can be downloaded as a PDF from this link.

Peter Dow’s response to ScotGov’s consultation – Budget 2021-22 Supporting the COVID-19 Recovery

Quarantine for Scotland

EVERYONE entering Scotland will have to be tested and quarantined, especially those with a legal reason to enter Scotland – such as Scots returning from visiting friends, relatives or business associates in England.

That means adding road blocks with diversions to managed quarantine facilities all along the border.

Quarantine For Scotland. M6 J45 B7076 Traffic Management. A74(M) Border Road-block. Quarantine at Gretna facilities.

For example, the A74(M) would have to be closed at Gretna, most likely northbound traffic road-blocked on the border itself, asking Cumbria police to divert traffic northbound for Scotland to turn off the M6 at the last junction (45) and those wishing to quarantine take the B7076 for quarantine facilities just across the border in Scotland, in the area in and around the Greens at Gretna Hotel and the Gretna Gateway South Car Park – with additional caravan camp type facilities added to cope with the expected number of people to be quarantined.

Quarantine for Scotland would mean closing all the road border-crossings into Scotland; only southbound traffic on the A74(M) and the A1 could be safely left “open”. So the only roadways into Scotland from England would be through the quarantine zones – one at Gretna, as illustrated above, where extensions to the quarantine zone would be constrained by the border and the town of Gretna and the other, most likely, on the A1 at Lamberton, where there are fewer constraints on development so the quarantine zone could be extended in any of the directions indicated in the plan.

Quarantine for Scotland. A1 Road-block Traffic Management. Quarantine at Lamberton facilities.

There would probably have to be enabling legislation through the Scottish Parliament to allow the Scottish government to make compulsory purchases of buildings and land in those “quarantine zone” areas required to be used for managed quarantine facilities.

All that work should have been done years ago as part of pandemic preparedness, but of course wasn’t done because the United Kingdom is totally clueless.

Quarantine for Scotland would mean that all supply lorries from England to Scotland would have to stop in a quarantine zone, either –

• to swap drivers (after disinfecting the cab) or
• to hitch the trailer to a Scottish cab or
• to deliver to a depot in the quarantine zone or
• to return to England or
• to continue on to Scotland with the same driver after 14-days in quarantine.

Realistically, this would increase the costs of delivering to Scotland from England.

Trains

Quarantine for Scotland would mean that all northbound cross-border passenger train services will be suspended.

Whilst it is simplest just to ban all cross-border passenger trains, it is possible, if complicated, to allow southbound passenger services to continue.

Southbound trains could continue service with the understanding that drivers, guards and passengers who cross into England will be expected when returning to Scotland to serve quarantine before being free to enter Scotland again.

Northbound empty (no passengers, just driver and guard only) passenger trains and all freight trains can be permitted to cross the border into Scotland in which case the northbound drivers and guards of all trains (passenger and freight) should get out (and be replaced by Scotland-based drivers and guards) at the first stop in Scotland and the cross-border drivers and guards should normally return to England on the next southbound train, most usefully as drivers and guards of that southbound train, replacing the Scotland-based drivers and guards who could get out at the last stop in Scotland before the train crosses the border into England; alternatively, northbound cross-border drivers and guards who do not intend to return to England but who wish to enter Scotland freely should serve 14-days quarantine preferably in a facility local to that first-stop station in Scotland provided by their employer.

Northbound west-coast railway-line train passengers can take the train as far as Carlisle then get a bus or taxi to the Quarantine at Gretna facilities. After serving 14-days quarantine, they can take a bus or a taxi to Annan railway station.

Northbound east-coast railway-line train passengers can take the train as far as Berwick-upon-Tweed then get a bus or a taxi to the Quarantine at Lamberton facilities. After serving 14-days quarantine, they can take a bus or a taxi to Dunbar railway station.

Trunk roads and council roads

Quarantine for Scotland would mean that the Scottish Government would have the responsibility to order the closure of only the 4 or 5 trunk roads which cross the border with England (see above map) and the local roads through the Quarantine Zones.

Other local roads should be blocked at the border crossings by the 2 councils on the border – the Dumfries and Galloway Council and the Scottish Borders Council.

Quarantine for Scotland would leave the power with the councils to decide if they want to block their own local roads at the border and to decide what help to ask from the Scottish government to close the border crossings successfully. Although how hard can it be to place a few skips to block the road at the border with England?

Of course if unauthorised persons were trying to clear the roads that the councils had ordered closed then the councils could ask for help from the police and the Scottish government to keep their roads blocked at the border.

B roads are the responsibility of the councils so if the 2 border councils don’t want to close their own B and local roads at the border with England then fair enough. In which case it may fall to other councils to close their local roads – likes of the various Ayrshire and Lothian councils – at the border between their councils and the border councils if they choose to do so.

If the border councils refuse to close their roads at the border with England then Quarantine for Scotland could be easily circumvented by travellers from England crossing using council roads.

However, that wouldn’t stop the police from arresting those who had travelled from England by circumventing the quarantine facilities – if the police could catch them, if not at the border then somewhere else in Scotland.

So Quarantine for Scotland, even if it closed the trunk roads, the railways, the airports, the sea ports for passenger entry to Scotland, would only be 100% effective if the border councils agreed with the idea of stopping getting re-infected from England and helped by closing their own roads at the border too.

The Scottish government could attempt to persuade border councils to close their roads at the border – plenty of carrots but no stick. Also the use of public health messages on TV could explain how the lack of co-operation from border councils on closing the border was a bad idea and voters should contact their councillor to ask them to get the council to close the roads at the border, etc.

Please don’t become a stranger. 😥

Coronavirus in Scotland: SNP MP Angus MacNeil calls for police to patrol Scottish border if lockdown is eased down south

I wish to repudiate Jacob Rees-Mogg claims Nicola Sturgeon wants to ‘build a wall like Trump’ in Scottish border row.

The more appropriate comparison is Sturgeon with El Chapo, the Mexican Drug Lord, whose crimes include smuggling drugs across the USA-Mexico border and 1,000 murders and likewise Nicola “La Chapo” Sturgeon is responsible for the crimes of quarantine busting across the England – Scotland border, spreading the COVID-19 infection from England to Scotland, thereby causing 2,480+ deaths.

• El Chapo trafficked drugs over the border and killed people.
• Sturgeon traffics infected people over the border and kills people.

Sturgeon has built no wall, guarded no border, imposed no quarantine on travellers from England. Comparing her with Trump is perverse.

Margaret Ferrier SNP MP

BBC: Margaret Ferrier’s covid breach is embarrassing for Nicola Sturgeon

The intelligence bar for travelling by train or any public transport is not set particularly high. Travel companies have gone to great lengths to make travelling possible for those who have difficulty following rules. More rules doesn’t deal with the Ferrier-class of great ape.

Making an example of Margaret Ferrier alone will not stop other infected covidiots crossing the open Scotland-England border to travel far and wide to spread the virus.

Only closing the border will work and the responsibility for not doing so rests with the head of state, the Queen and her ministers such as First Minister Nicola Sturgeon.

Only making an example of the Queen and/or her failing ministers and changing the policy to close the border and impose Quarantine for Scotland as described here will work to stop the spread of infection into Scotland.

WHY THE SNP OPPOSED QUARANTINE FOR SCOTLAND

Scotland has the power to quarantine entrants but the SNP refused to impose compulsory quarantine in managed facilities for all legal entrants to Scotland, to suit SNP MPs returning to constituencies every weekend, so 1000s of Scots died.