Assertions she was not playing politics are shot down in flames

Bloodied, and at times tearful, but unbowed … that was the image that Nicola Sturgeon sought to portray at her evidence session to the Covid Inquiry. But her case that she wasn’t playing politics and that her government was devoting all its energy to fighting the virus was holed below the waterline by an astonishing intervention by Lady Hallett, the inquiry chairman.

The former judge intervened in a heated exchange between the former first minister and Jamie Dawson KC, counsel to the inquiry, to suggest that a Scottish Cabinet minute proved that the Sturgeon government had planned to use the pandemic to further the cause of independence.

The clash came in the long-awaited appearance of Ms Sturgeon before the inquiry, but the woman we saw giving evidence was, at times, a vastly different individual, both in tone and temperament, to the confident, often brash, politician that we thought we knew well. Dressed to match the mood of the country during the pandemic, which she said was “extremely sombre and at times very, very dark” she failed to hold back the tears when she talked of her controversial role in the crisis.

She seemed to have shrunk in stature, too, as she faced claims that she’d been more interested in playing politics, especially in promoting Scottish independence, than in helping Scotland fight the virus.

But she became emotional when she was asked about her feelings at the start of the pandemic. Seeking to brush away tears, she said: “I was the first minister when the pandemic struck. A large part of me wishes I hadn’t been but I was and I wanted to be the best first minister I could be.”

However, any sympathy she might have gained over the awesome responsibility that Covid posed for all our ministers – and I’m, not suggesting Ms Sturgeon was seeking any – disappeared following Lady Hallett’s intervention. She referred to a Scottish Cabinet minute which clearly recorded that the SNP planned to use the pandemic to further the case for independence. The former first minister insisted that she wasn’t guilty of hypocrisy but Lady Hallett suggested the minute left no doubt as to what her government would do.

La Sturgeon tried to fight back, saying no work had been done by the Scottish government to win a new referendum. But by then, her case that she wasn’t playing politics had been largely destroyed. It was an incredible passage of arms in an otherwise riveting day. Thus far almost all the evidence heard from other witnesses has suggested Scotland’s longest serving first minister had operated an administration obsessed with secrecy, that she took most of the important decisions herself and that she had deleted important Whatsapp messages that she’d pledged to retain.

Ms Sturgeon insisted that she hardly ever used Whatsapp but admitted she’d deleted the few she’d sent and said she didn’t agree with its use for government business.

But Mr Dawson returned several times to the issue of secrecy and quizzed her about her establishment of the tiny group of ministers and advisers into what became known as Gold Command.

To be fair, the former first minister put up a spirited defence of her record during the pandemic and was all but reduced to tears once more when she said that she took it very personally when people questioned her motives, because she added: “I know that the motives were in good faith and for the best of reasons.”

And she offered no apology over claims that she sought to implement policies just to be different to those in the rest of the UK. It was not done, she said “to irritate Boris Johnson”, adding: “I was simply trying to do my job.”

How will the voters view her evidence? Her problem is that, after the events of the last 12 months, her reputation, and not just her political career, is hopelessly tarnished.

Can the SNP’S role as Scotland’s governing party be far behind?

‘The woman we saw giving evidence was, at times, vastly different to the one we thought we knew well’