UK Covid Inquiry uncovers shameful evidence about Nicola Sturgeon's inner circle during pandemic – Jackie Baillie

Despite all their attempts at deletion, obfuscation and plain lying, a portrait is emerging of an SNP administration desperately trying to cover their attempts to push the cause of independence under the guise of handling a deadly pandemic. Families who lost loved ones deserve justice, deserve to know how decisions were made and deserve answers.

It has already been confirmed by the national clinical director, Jason Leitch, that officials and ministers routinely deleted WhatsApp evidence which might throw light on their true motivations while the nation was gripped in lockdown. Leitch also advised Humza Yousaf on how to avoid the rules by keeping a drink in his hands at all times to remain "exempt" from wearing a mask at a dinner. Here was a man that helped shape the rules telling the current FM how to get round them.

‘Don’t worry about protocol’

Even Ken Thomson, the man in charge of the data retention policy, has been caught telling people how to avoid it. All through the pandemic, Nicola Sturgeon seized the opportunity of daily press conferences to push the idea that Scotland did things differently.

To gild her fall from grace, it was revealed on Tuesday that the former First Minister directed advisers to email her at her SNP address thus avoiding the need to reveal the exchanges through freedom of information or the requirements of a public inquiry.

In an exchange in June 2020, Professor Devi Sridhar sent a phone message to Sturgeon saying she was “happy to share a draft” of a note she had prepared for the chief medical officer but questioned if that would “overstep or break protocol”. Responding, Sturgeon said: “That would be helpful. Don’t worry about protocol...” She went on to tell the academic to send the information to her “privately”, providing an SNP email address. It was a clear and deliberate breach of protocol.

And what did we learn yesterday? Sturgeon’s aide Liz Lloyd deliberately sought a “rammy” with the UK Government – you couldn’t make this up. Lloyd even mentioned being tired of talking about “sick people” – this is shameful. This is the former First Minister who adopted an imperious tone when asked if she could guarantee bereaved families that she would disclose WhatsApps and private emails to an inquiry.

Yousaf has promised a review into the use of WhatsApp – this is too little and too late. His appearance may have generated more heat than light, but from saying he’d deleted his messages to then finding them later and describing the Scottish Police Federation as a "disgrace”, it’s clear that his hands are far from clean.

Scotland needs a government that does not need to be shamed into following the rules.

Jackie Baillie is MSP for Dumbarton, Scottish Labour’s deputy leader and her party’s spokesperson for health