Those with the most powerful jobs in the country are all too happy to misuse their positions when it comes to spying on innocent people.
But when the tables are turned they are not so keen to share information about themselves – even if it is crucial for helping to learn lessons and make changes for the future. Health chiefs at NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde used a covert spying technique to monitor grieving widow Louise Slorance who has been fighting to find out the truth about her husband Andrew’s death while at the Queen Elizabeth University Hospital in 2020.
Today we have revealed that not only were those NHS officials scouring the depths of the internet to spy on Louise and any mention of her husband’s name online, they have been paying a private company using taxpayers’ cash to do so. Despite admitting this the health board will not say what the cost of the spying exercise is or which firm has been given the contract.
The culture of secrecy and cover-up does not end when major problems are exposed and that must change. We have also seen this week that when people in positions of power have the spotlight turned on them they do not willingly open their own records to the same scrutiny as they would gladly subject others.
The UK Government is in a battle with its own Covid Inquiry team over the release of WhatsApp messages sent by ministers during the pandemic. A seismic event that has surely changed the lives of anyone who lived through it, the pandemic left unanswered questions and the public has a right to know what the government was or was not doing to keep them safe.
Now we have learned that lawyers representing families who lost loved ones in Scotland during the pandemic are taking action to ensure the same information is being sought from Scottish ministers. This is a chance for Holyrood ministers to show the people they are elected to represent that they are honest and transparent in how they conduct government business.
Let’s hope they do the right thing and hand over all unredacted messages, emails and documents necessary to the Scottish Covid inquiry and we do not have the same legal war coming in Edinburgh as Rishi Sunak has chosen to wage in London.
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