Questions over deleted Whatsapps need answers

The UK Covid Inquiry is already shining an unforgiving light into Scotland’s corridors of power – and we’ve not even heard from the key political players yet.

A hearing in Edinburgh yesterday was told both Nicola Sturgeon and her former deputy, John Swinney, failed to retain any of their pandemic Whatsapp messages.

Ms Sturgeon’s were deleted “in routine tidying up of inboxes or changes of phones”, according to information provided by the Scottish Government, while Mr Swinney used an autodelete function.

The UK inquiry is sitting in Scotland for three weeks. There are two more to go, and Ms Sturgeon, Mr Swinney and Prof Leitch are all due to give evidence in person.

It’s worth remembering Ms Sturgeon was talking about a potential inquiry as early as May 2020. The separate Scottish inquiry was officially announced in August the following year. That same month, Ms Sturgeon was asked by a journalist if she could guarantee to bereaved families that she would disclose all her messages.

Her reply bordered on the patronising. “I think if you understand statutory public inquiries, you would know that even if I wasn't prepared to give that assurance – which for the avoidance of doubt, I am – then I wouldn’t have the ability,” she said. “This will be a judge-led, statutory public inquiry.”

And yet here we are, almost two-and-a-half years later, and those Whatsapps are nowhere to be seen. We will never know what insights they contained about one of the most extraordinary, disruptive events in modern history.