Nicola Sturgeon urged to 'tell the truth' at Covid inquiry
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Nicola Sturgeon has been urged to “tell the truth” to the Covid inquiry as bereaved families said their trust in her had been “broken”.
The former First Minister is due to give evidence on Wednesday, where she will be questioned about wiping her WhatsApp messages and pandemic decision making within the Scottish Government .
A poll, released on Sunday, showed that a majority of Scots no longer trust Ms Sturgeon, a remarkable turnaround since the pandemic when she enjoyed sky-high approval ratings.
However, the revelation that she deleted all of her WhatsApp messages, despite promising that they would be made available to the inquiry, have caused a major scandal.
Ms Sturgeon’s reputation has also been damaged by an unresolved police investigation into SNP finances, which saw her arrested and her home raided by detectives
Maggie Waterton, a member of the Scottish Covid Bereaved group, said many families felt “their trust had been broken, both in the former First Minister and some of the senior clinical advisers” after hearing evidence of the last fortnight, while the inquiry has been sitting in Scotland.
“I’d really like for the former First Minister to tell the truth, to be honest, open, transparent, and to demonstrate accountability in her responses to the inquiry,” Ms Waterton, whose mother and husband died from Covid, said.
“The Scottish Government rhetoric is about it being a government of transparency and accountability and the reality seems far from that. So we want [witnesses] to tell the truth so we can truly learn lessons going forward.”
Ms Sturgeon previously claimed that she did not use WhatsApp to make decisions during the pandemic.
However, the claim was undermined by Liz Lloyd, her former chief adviser, who kept her messages with her former boss.
They showed Ms Sturgeon discussed restrictions and plotted political attacks on the UK Government over the messaging platform.
In one exchange, Ms Lloyd said she wanted to create a “good old fashioned rammy” with UK ministers so she could “think about something other than sick people”.
Ms Sturgeon replied “yeah I get it” and went on to follow the advice. She also used WhatsApp to label Boris Johnson a “f****** clown”.
Other witnesses have raised major doubts about the motivations behind her decision-making, with Mark Woolhouse, a University of Edinburgh expert, saying it appeared lockdown policies were based on a desire to be different to England.
A Norstat poll for the Sunday Times found that 51 per cent of Scots do not trust Ms Sturgeon, compared to 32 per cent who do trust her. Even among SNP voters, 24 per cent said they did not trust the former First Minister.
During the pandemic, she recorded a score of plus 18 on trustworthiness.
Her successor, Humza Yousaf, is also facing pressure over deleted WhatsApps. In October, he denied claims that he had deleted messages and said he did not know where press reports saying he had erased them had come from.
However, under oath at the inquiry, he admitted he had told the inquiry his messages had been deleted. He subsequently claimed that he had been able to retrieve some messages from an old handset.
Opposition parties at Holyrood are demanding a probe into whether he breached the ministerial code by deliberately misleading the public.
Ms Sturgeon has denied any wrongdoing in relation to the criminal investigation and has insisted she followed Scottish Government policies by wiping messages.
Ian Blackford, the SNP MP who is a close ally to Ms Sturgeon, said on Sunday: “Let’s not forget that the First Minister did 250 press conferences over that period, putting herself in front of the public.
“The poll shows 32 per cent of the public trust Nicola Sturgeon, that’s far more than Rishi Sunak.”
