The Guardian view on Covid and devolution: Britain’s missing mindset | Editorial
Lady Hallett’s inquiry is learning that the UK and Scottish governments each lacked respect for the sharing of powers
From the outset of the Covid-19 pandemic, the UK government and the Scottish government responded to it differently in many ways. This was not because Covid-19 took one form in Scotland and another in England. It did not. The virus killed much the same proportion of both populations. The differences of approach arose mainly from human and political causes. The two governments not only saw the role of government differently. They also mistrusted one another’s motives, not without reason.
Lady Hallett’s UK Covid inquiry has spent the past two weeks cross-examining many members of the Scottish political and medical elite about their approaches and actions between 2000 and 2022. Lady Hallett and her team will shortly move on to Wales and to Northern Ireland. But the story she heard in Scotland was not an uplifting one. True, the Scottish elites’ record during Covid did not descend to the level of the often chaotic indecision and recklessness of the UK response – which would have been hard. But the Scottish government has not emerged covered in virtue or glory either.
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