Sturgeon deleted all WhatsApps relating to Covid, inquiry told

NICOLA STURGEON deleted all her WhatsApp messages from the pandemic and her most high-profile adviser discussed deleting messages, the Covid Inquiry has heard.

Yesterday, it was confirmed that the former First Minister had retained “no messages whatsoever”. It also emerged that Jason Leitch, the National Clinical Director of the Scottish Government, had said during the pandemic that “WhatsApp deletion is a pre-bed ritual”.

The inquiry is currently hearing evidence which relates to events in Scotland. Westminster politicians including Boris Johnson and Rishi Sunak handed over Whatsapp messages to the inquiry and have been interrogated over them. Exchanges amongst politicians and advisers have been used to claim there was a toxic culture in Downing Street and raise questions about the government’s response to the pandemic.

Yesterday, Jamie Dawson KC, counsel to the inquiry, confirmed that Ms Sturgeon and John Swinney, her deputy, had not retained any messages from during the pandemic. It means that lawyers will be unable to grill Ms Sturgeon in the same way Mr Johnson and others were quizzed.

Ms Sturgeon has attempted to portray herself as more professional than Mr Johnson during the pandemic, describing him as “a disgrace to the office” of Prime Minister.

During yesterday’s hearing, Mr Dawson made reference to a schedule of what material could be provided to the inquiry as he explained Ms Sturgeon had destroyed her messages.

“Under the box ‘Nicola Sturgeon’, it says that messages were not retained, they were deleted in routine tidying up of inboxes or changes of phones, unable to retrieve messages,” he said.

“What that tends to suggest is at the time that request was made, Nicola Sturgeon, the former first minister of Scotland, had retained no messages whatsoever in connection with her management of the pandemic.”

Lesley Fraser, the director general corporate of the Scottish Government, who was giving evidence, replied: “That’s what that indicates to me.”

The inquiry heard that Mr Swinney used an “auto-delete function” to clear messages and also wiped them manually. Messages deleted by Ms Sturgeon included discussions with Mr Swinney and also Humza Yousaf, the current First Minister, and Liz Lloyd, her most

senior adviser. Ms Fraser said that “anything of significance” in Whatsapps would be raised in meetings but conceded she could not know if all conversations had been added to the official record.

Ms Sturgeon deleted messages long after she announced her intention to hold a Scottish Covid Inquiry in May 2020 and she is facing questions over whether she ignored requests for material to be kept.

The UK government wrote to all devolved governments in June 2021, February 2022 and October 2022 asking for material of potential relevance to be kept and not destroyed.

Before the first request from the UK government, and a day after Mr Johnson

announced the Covid Inquiry, Prof Leitch and others discussed deleting messages.

Messages that have been disclosed to the inquiry reveal that on May 13th, 2021 Ken Thomson, a member of the Covid Co-ordination Directorate, noted Whatsapp exchanges were covered under Freedom of Information Laws.

“I feel moved at this point to remind you that this channel is FOI-recovera- ble”, he wrote, followed by an emoji with a zipped mouth.

Another civil servant replied “Clear the chat!” before Prof Leitch added: “WhatsApp deletion is a pre-bed ritual.”

Mr Thomson told the inquiry that his comments were a joke because he expected Prof Leitch to be furious at a Twitter post showing a mass gathering of Rangers football fans.

Ms Sturgeon failed to explain why she deleted the messages yesterday but said she was “committed to full transparency” and that messages were handled in line with Scottish Government procedures.

Mr Swinney’s spokesman said he was also committed to “full transparency”.

UNVACCINATED young adults who missed out on the measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) jab over autism fears could worsen the measles crisis, doctors have warned.

Experts said that from 1998 vaccine uptake fell because of “highly publicised but subsequently discredited research suggesting a link with autism”, and that those children whose parents opted against vaccines as a result are now young adults.

Health officials have warned that other cities in Britain are at “very real risk” of the kind of outbreak seen in Birmingham, while others have said it is just a matter of time “before this virus kills”. Uptake of the MMR jab fell from 91.5 per cent in 1997 to a record low of 79.9 per cent in 2004 for first doses, in the wake of a falsified report by disgraced doctor Andrew Wakefield, which wrongly claimed the vaccinations caused children to develop autism.

While this improved up to 2014, the trend has reversed once again in the past decade, falling faster since the pandemic to 84.5 per cent of people fully vaccinated last year.

Prof Helen Bedford, of the UCL Great Ormond Street Institute of Child Health, added that “we have also seen a small decline in vaccine uptake yearon-year for the past 10 years”.

The UK Health Security Agency said the surge of cases in the West Midlands, where 216 cases have been confirmed, could be set to occur elsewhere.

Nicola Sturgeon has said she is committed to ‘full transparency’