Sturgeon was referring to Prime Minister Boris Johnson's approach to the coronavirus, which has included a botched testing plan and repeated policy U-turns. As regional parliamentary elections loom in May, Sturgeon's Scottish National Party is running on a platform of holding a second independence referendum. But some of the economic rationale that drove the relationship faded in the 20th century after Britain lost its empire in the wake of World War II. Johnson himself fell gravely ill in the spring, just weeks after visiting coronavirus patients in a hospital, where he boasted that he'd shaken hands "with everybody." But Ailsa Henderson, a professor of political science at the University of Edinburgh, wonders how long the national government in London can ignore the popular will.