WE’RE now almost two weeks on from the story that Dominic Cummings broke lockdown rules. And yesterday, a new YouGov poll showed that one in five Brits are now complying with lockdown rules less strictly, with a third citing the Prime Minister’s senior adviser.

That’s, roughly, 7% of the public saying that they have loosened compliance. Reading a poll like that, it’s not difficult to understand why trust in this Government has collapsed.

Yet now it is more important than ever that our governments are able to kindle trust, as we are now forced to walk a tightrope out of lockdown. We are, arguably, entering the most dangerous time in responding to this pandemic. There is likely to be a second spike, but how we act now can determine the size – and our ability to treat – that spike.

The right and privilege to govern is earned. It is based on consent, confidence and, ultimately, trust. But it’s not just here in the UK that we’ve seen trust slide.

It was a haunting image: Trump authorising the use of tear gas on peaceful protesters, for a photoshoot brandishing a bible. This just moments after declaring he would call on the military to crack down on nationwide protests.

All of this, rather than admit that police officers killed a black man for no reason other than the colour of his skin. The murder of George Floyd

has, rightly, spurred us all to think about what better we can do to tackle the scourge of racism.

We should pride ourselves on our values of diversity, equality and justice. Embracing our diversity and striving for

equality is the bedrock of our human rights – which are universal, inalienable and indivisible. These are values at the heart of the Black Lives Matter movement, and underline how important it is for all of us to give space and prominence to that movement.

But the sad truth is that we in Scotland and the UK are not immune from those same kinds of prejudice. Take the handling of the report into Covid-19 deaths amongst the BAME community – the findings of which Number 10 refuses to publish because it might inflame community tensions.

This moment to own up and start to rebuild trust has needlessly been thrown away. Because Boris Johnson cannot be honest about manifestations of racism in this country.

It has also prompted a particular Glasgow discussion, with calls to rename the streets in our Merchant City, to definitively draw a line under our city’s colonial history.

Glasgow was at one point the second city of the empire. This is a fact that we have to acknowledge and discuss – and one that we can’t airbrush out of our history.

As a former teacher, I think it is more important than ever for us to understand and recognise

our history, to learn from it, rather than try to ignore it. Learning the origins of our city’s wealth may well shock us, but that shock creates an opportunity to set it right for future generations.