Whatever happens this week, secrecy must end
Covid Inquiry has underlined lack of transparency in Scottish Government decision making that betrays voters
Aglance at the polls over the weekend would have told Humza Yousaf what he surely already knows.
Support for the SNP is plummeting in the wake of the Covid Whatsapp scandals, with Labour on course for a significant win in Scotland at the General Election.
There (may be) a long way to go before a Westminster poll, but the shift in polling in such a short space of time is stark. If the polls played out, Labour would take 28 seats in Scotland, with the SNP dropping to just 18.
The First Minister is also now facing calls to order an investigation into himself over statements he made about deleting Whatsapp messages. Meanwhile, there has been a demand for a ministerial code investigation into why former First Minister Nicola Sturgeon’s “Gold-command” meetings during the pandemic were not minuted.
This may all be good ammunition for opposition politicians, but it is also vitally important in exposing the lack of transparency around Scottish Government decision making. Ms Sturgeon will take to the stand before the UK Covid Inquiry sitting in Edinburgh on Wednesday, with a full day set aside for her evidence.
The inquiry will expect answers, not deflection. So too will the families still mourning the loss of loved ones during the pandemic, and not just over whether messages were deleted or not but on why the decisions which had the most profound consequences were taken.
Ahead of this week’s evidence, which will also see former health secretary Jeane Freeman appear, Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar has called for families to get the “answers they deserve” over the discharging of Covid-positive patients into care homes.
“At the heart of this inquiry are the people who lost their lives and lost their loved ones – and so far they have been badly let down by the SNP circus playing out,” he says,
It is beyond time for the circus to end, for the secrecy to end, and for the truth to emerge. We may begin to get some of those answers this week.