The Covid inquiry has damaged Sturgeon’s legacy beyond repair

If you thought senior Conservatives giving evidence to the UK Covid inquiry in London was rough then you should watch the footage now emerging from Edinburgh, where the Inquiry’s lawyers have moved to take evidence. It’s a bloodbath. Former first minister Nicola Sturgeon and current first minister Humza Yousaf are yet to even take the stand. But already the sessions have revealed a Scottish SNP government embroiled in secrecy, cover-up and the politicisation of a deadly pandemic in the interests of furthering the cause of independence.

The latest revelations are startling. On Friday morning, the inquiry established that Sturgeon and other senior Scottish government officials had deliberately deleted WhatsApp messages the inquiry wanted as evidence. Later in the day, the inquiry questioned Ken Thomson, a retired senior civil servant and the former manager of the Covid coordination directorate of the Scottish government. He was asked about posts he made in a ‘Covid outbreak group’ WhatsApp chat in August 2020. As well as Thomson, the group also included Scotland’s national clinical director Jason Leitch and the then deputy chief medical officer Nicola Steedman.

The conversation went as follows:

Thomson: ‘Just to remind you (seriously), this is discoverable under FOI [freedom of information]. Know where the “clear chat” button is…’

Steedman: ‘Yes, absolutely…’

Leitch: ‘DG level input there…’

Leitch: ‘Done.’

Thomson: ‘Plausible deniability are my middle names. Now clear it again!’

Thomson denied this was an attempt to defeat requests under FOI laws.

In another WhatsApp group post dated May 13, 2021, he wrote: ‘I feel moved at this point to tell you that this chat is FOI-recoverable.’ His message ends with an emoji with a zipped mouth.

Remarkably, this is the same Ken Thomson who, in August 2021, and along with fellow senior civil servant Lesley Fraser, issued a formal letter to civil service colleagues laying down the law in relation to record retention for both the UK and Scottish Covid inquiries. They wrote:

If in doubt, you should assume that material may be relevant and ensure that it is retained and is accessible in eRDM [electronic Records and Document Management system]. This includes ensuring that no material of potential relevance to either inquiry is destroyed.

The May 13 2021 WhatsApp conversation also featured Leitch boasting about deleting his messages. ‘WhatsApp deletion is a pre-bed ritual,’ he said. Incredibly, this was just one day after the prime minister had confirmed a public inquiry into the pandemic that would have ‘full formal powers, including the ability to compel production of relevant material and to take oral evidence in public under oath’. It is also notable that we now know the Scottish government issued misinformation to the press, and therefore the public, in October when it gave ‘background information’ in a press release stating it is ‘not correct that the national clinical director deleted every WhatsApp message every day’.

The revelations during Friday’s session did not end there. It also emerged that in June 2020, during the first lockdown, the Scottish government had considered how the pandemic could be politicised to restart campaigning for independence. Minutes from a Scottish government cabinet meeting dated 30 June 2020 shows agreement that ‘consideration should be given to restarting work on independence and a referendum, with the arguments reflecting the experience of the coronavirus crisis and developments on EU exit’.

On that same day, 30 June 2020, speaking at one of the daily presidential-style press conferences she gave at the time, Nicola Sturgeon said: ‘Frankly, anybody who is trotting out political or constitutional arguments is in the wrong place completely, and has found themselves completely lost.’

The Covid-19 inquiry has only just started taking witness evidence on the Scottish government’s handling of the pandemic. Already, it has revealed the industrial-scale deletion of vital information needed to understand government decision-making, a Scottish government shown to not only be secretive but hypocritical, the uncovering of apparent co-option of Scotland’s civil service and confirmation that the Sturgeon administration considered using the pandemic as an opportunity to promote the break-up of the UK.

The inquiry will take evidence from Scottish government scientific advisers this week. Who knows what else will emerge, despite attempts to keep the truth from bereaved families. What is not in doubt is the damage to Sturgeon’s reputation. That, at least, can now never be deleted.