England’s leg of the inquiry was full of character assassinations, effing and jeffing and flip-flops. Anything of note was lost when the PM’s phone was mysteriously wiped. If it hadn’t been for the Lockdown Files, we probably would have never learned that masks in schools were introduced to avoid an argument with Nicola.
But in Scotland, some of the decision-makers began to loosen their tongues: officials “froze” in the face of the evidence about the virus; Sturgeon let it be known that in wanting to be the person who drove Covid out of Scotland, she entered into direct Twitter messaging with Professor Sridhar. We also learnt that Sir Gregor Smith, Scotland’s CMO, deleted his WhatsApp messages “at the end of every day” and encouraged his colleagues to do so too.
We have already written that the Welsh First Minister considered lockdowns a failed experiment and that Welsh Government ministers were using disappearing messages. But all this pales into insignificance with the latest testimonies in Wales.
In testimony, Simon Hart, the Secretary of State for Wales during the pandemic, said the different rules were brought in for the “sake of it”.
Tom Poole, the KC to the Welsh Inquiry, asked:
Mr. Hart’s response is somewhat astonishing.
Tom Poole pushed the point further by asking:
Also on the stand was the most senior special adviser to the Welsh Government, Jane Runeckles. Runeckles was a member of three WhatsApp groups: ‘Drake Spads’, ‘coronavirus legal hotline’ and a group involving Welsh Government ministers.
As a special adviser, she was responsible for 14 other special advisers who supported the First Minister and individual Welsh ministers.
From January 1st 2020 to 31 May 2022, Runeckles used her personal mobile phone to send WhatsApp messages. The KC put it to her that she was prohibited from doing so:
Hallett intervened when Runeckles tried to obfuscate:
The Welsh Government Information Management and Governance Policy states: “Staff should be aware that when using their [Welsh Government] phones in this way they are in fact creating ‘public records’. Staff using private phones for [Welsh Government] business may also be creating public records.”
Runeckles was in a bind. She said she was aware of the policy but was then asked why she turned on disappearing messages.
Hallett waded in, as she was having none of it:
Runeckles was further on the hook when some retrieved messages revealed direct lockdown business was happening on WhatsApp.
The Welsh leg of the inquiry tells us pandemic business was taking place on WhatsApp; chat was how lockdown discussions were done and then deleted.
We have gleaned that lockdowns in Wales were implemented as an experiment and for the sake of it. However, over the three legs of the inquiry there has been no indication that any decision was based on evidence.
In the pandemic politics replaced public health: we wonder if the WhatsApp messages had been disclosed in full, whether they would have revealed the logic behind the decision-making was far worse or absent altogether.
This post will not self-destruct or self-delete; it isn’t an experiment, won’t flip-flop, and isn’t commercially sensitive. You will not incur a fixed penalty notice if you choose not to read it, and it isn’t written just for the sake of it.
Prof. Carl Heneghan is the Oxford Professor of Evidence Based Medicine and Dr. Tom Jefferson is an epidemiologist based in Rome who works with Professor Heneghan on the Cochrane Collaboration. This article was first published on their Substack, Trust The Evidence, which you can subscribe to here.
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