![](\"https:\/\/i.dailymail.co.uk\/1s\/2023\/10\/31\/10\/77214019-12692537-image-m-2_1698748172690.jpg\")
<\/p>\nBack in the bad old days of the pandemic, our lives were micro-managed by politicians and senior medics who became temporary celebrities.<\/p>\n
From her podium of doom, Nicola Sturgeon sermonised on a near-daily basis on television about the importance of washing your hands and staying at home.<\/p>\n
And Professor Sir Gregor Smith, the Chief Medical Officer, backed her up \u2013 in conjunction with the ubiquitous former dentist, Professor Jason Leitch, the National Clinical Director.<\/p>\n
For the most part, we took our medicine, as bitter as it often was, and abided by the rules \u2013 as each day brought more unimaginable upheaval, pain and turmoil.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Nicola Sturgeon gave numerous Scottish Government Covid-19 press conferences<\/p>\n
Now these figures from our recent past, who wielded such awesome power, are caught up in a scandal over the alleged mass deletion of \u00adWhatsApp messages.<\/p>\n
Risks<\/span><\/p>\n The encrypted app was a lifeline during the worst of the Covid pandemic \u2013 but for government officials and \u00administers it was invaluable for different reasons.<\/p>\n It was seen as an easy and, importantly, private means of communication, enabling the rapid transfer of information and providing a safe space for decision-making.<\/p>\n But there are risks. Messages can be leaked, and often are \u2013 causing embarrassment or political damage.<\/p>\n As we reported yesterday, Sir Gregor, who once urged the elderly against taking overseas holidays even if they were double-vaccinated, is said to have auto-deleted his WhatsApps \u2013 a claim that his spokesman failed to \u00adconfirm or deny.<\/p>\n Professor Leitch, who also lectured us throughout the pandemic and increased his public profile further by appearing on the football radio show Off the Ball, is accused of automatically deleting WhatsApp exchanges with other officials and \u00administers.\u00a0<\/p>\n But they may have been far from alone \u2013 as we revealed on Saturday, more than 100 people at the heart\u00a0of government are feared to have deleted thousands of WhatsApps.<\/p>\n The UK Covid Inquiry\u2019s legal team believes the \u2018majority\u2019 of WhatsApp messages shared among SNP Government officials \u2018have not been retained\u2019.<\/p>\n Its chairman, Baroness \u00adHallett, has warned that she \u2018will not hesitate\u2019 to use \u00ad\u2018statutory powers\u2019 at her \u00addisposal to obtain the relevant information.<\/p>\n Lawyers for relatives of Covid victims are now \u00adplanning to lobby Meta, which owns WhatsApp, in a bid to retrieve any data that might have been deleted \u2013 but it is shameful that such a \u00admechanism should have to be contemplated.<\/p>\n What we\u2019re talking about is the possible eradication of a treasure trove of vital data which might have helped us to understand how decisions were taken during a public health emergency which affected all of our lives.<\/p>\n Schools were shut down, with profound consequences for the life chances of a \u00adgeneration of young people.<\/p>\n Mr Yousaf has denied deleting messages relating to the pandemic<\/p>\n Severe restrictions included a ban on visiting sick or dying relatives, while Covid-positive or untested patients were \u00addischarged into care homes \u2013 where the virus ran riot, \u00adkilling thousands.<\/p>\n The elderly were isolated and anxious, and families lived in fear of contracting a deadly disease.\u00a0<\/p>\n Meanwhile, hundreds of criminals were freed from prison by Humza Yousaf, who was then Justice Secretary, to try to limit the spread of Covid \u2013 and many of them were later returned to custody for a host of suspected offences including attempted murder, serious assault, \u00adrobbery and sex offences.<\/p>\n It\u2019s worth reflecting on those difficult memories, not least because human nature is to move on from trauma and try to forget.\u00a0<\/p>\n In a post-vaccine world, many of the curbs placed on our lives now appear to have been excessive \u2013 and some of them were.<\/p>\n But we put up with them \u2013 largely because we didn\u2019t have a choice \u2013 on the basis that the people making these decisions would be held to account for their actions, either at an inquiry or ultimately at the ballot box, or both.<\/p>\n Mr Yousaf let out those \u00adprisoners and in April 2020 proposed an abortive plan for judge-only trials to relieve pressure on the crisis-stricken justice system, as courts were forced to close \u2013 creating a backlog of cases which \u00adcontinues to cause chaos more than three years later.<\/p>\n Were these controversial proposals discussed in Whats-App chats and, if so, what was said? The answer is that we may never know.<\/p>\n The allegation that decisions were made in private online forums \u2013 with the virtual paper trail wiped out of existence \u2013 makes a mockery of our \u00adcollective sacrifice as a lethal new virus struck down friends and relatives, whose funerals we couldn\u2019t even attend.<\/p>\n Transparency<\/span><\/p>\n Among the many \u00adunanswered questions is whether or not the key decision-makers including Ms Sturgeon and Mr Yousaf, who succeeded her as First Minister, knew about these deletions, or made any themselves \u2013 and if it was a policy, who imposed it, when, and why?<\/p>\n Yesterday, Mr Yousaf denied deleting pandemic-related messages, after official spokesmen spent the weekend trotting out vague lines about the SNP Government\u2019s commitment to transparency.<\/p>\n That\u2019s hard to take from \u00adpoliticians who have governed by redaction and outright censorship for the past 16 years \u2013 creating a corrosive culture of secrecy in every aspect of public life.<\/p>\n But now two Covid inquiries, one on either side of the \u00adBorder, are in operation \u2013 and there are disturbing new \u00addisclosures or allegations every day about the extent of what may have been a \u00adsustained exercise in \u00adtrack-covering by ministers and their servants.<\/p>\n The attraction of such a modus operandi for \u00adpoliticians is easy to see \u2013 and it\u2019s no surprise that similar tactics are being uncovered in Whitehall.<\/p>\n Drama<\/span><\/p>\n Disappearing messages, or their manual deletion, offers a tantalising possibility \u2013 the exercise of power without full accountability.<\/p>\n But a vast cache of crucial information may have been lost \u2013 perhaps irretrievably \u2013 and voters, including the bereaved, the long Covid \u00adsufferers and the taxpayers whose cash bought the devices in question, are being kept in the dark.<\/p>\n While this latest drama unfolds amid calls for urgent statements to parliament, Ms Sturgeon is busy working on a tell-all memoir \u2013 as she banks an advance of \u00a3300,000 from her publisher.<\/p>\n Her memory is famously unreliable, as we saw during the Salmondgate inquiry at Holyrood \u2013 but is she relying purely on her recollection of events, or does she have contemporaneous notes to guide her?<\/p>\n Professor Jason Leitch became an ubiquitous figure on the airwaves during the pandemic<\/p>\n We don\u2019t know, and yet it would be wrong if the only people afforded access to this material in the short term were her editors.<\/p>\n The work of the inquiries should take precedence and her book should be put on the backburner, allowing Ms Sturgeon to focus on her constituents \u2013 which is, after all, the primary role of a backbench MSP.<\/p>\n Trust in the government she once led is in freefall after years of pathological secrecy which were an affront to our democracy.<\/p>\n Now we deserve to know the truth about our political \u00admasters during a time of national calamity \u2013 and they must be held fully to account for their actions.<\/p>\n![](\"https:\/\/i.dailymail.co.uk\/1s\/2023\/10\/31\/10\/77214349-12692537-image-a-19_1698748475574.jpg\")
<\/p>\n![](\"https:\/\/i.dailymail.co.uk\/1s\/2023\/10\/31\/10\/77214517-12692537-image-m-21_1698748638176.jpg\")
<\/p>\n