Covid Inquiry: Nicola Sturgeon calls Boris Johnson a 'f**cking clown' on WhatsApp as Humza Yousaf set to appear
Recap what happened at the UK Covid-19 Inquiry today with The Scotsman's politics team.
Key Events
Liz Lloyd says there were occasions where the Scottish cabinet would agree to delegate decisions to First Minister Nicola Sturgeon or Deputy First Minister John Swinney.
She said this tended to be on communications and timing public announcements.
The conversation has now moved on to Liz Lloyd’s work on strategising Scottish independence.
She was asked how much of her job was focused on independence, and she said “not as much as people might have thought or liked”.
The inquiry is now being shown a cabinet minute where it said it was “agreed that consideration should be given on restarting independence and the referendum with the argument reflecting the experience of the coronavirus crisis and development on EU exit”.
She says no action was taken during the time, it was merely to consider restarting it.
Mr Tariq asks when independence became a concern for the government during the pandemic.
Ms Lloyd said: “It generally didn’t.
“I worked on the pandemic from March 2020 to March 2021.
“We suspended work on independence and a referendum and the team was disbanded and sent to work on Covid-related activities.
“There are a few references I can think of in the 2021/22 programme for government where there are one or two paragraphs which makes clear any action is contingent on the state of the pandemic.
“I don’t think anything happens until after the 2021 election.”
We are now taking a look at a handwritten notebook where Ms Lloyd wrote “political tactics calling for things we can’t do to force the UK”.
Counsel Usman Tariq questions if this suggests the Scottish Government’s political strategy during the pandemic was to create a “public spat” with the UK Government and to force their hand.
Ms Lloyd said: “It’s not about a spat, this would be about putting pressure on the UK, not deliberately falling out, although in an ideal world they [the UK Government] would have accepted that point.
“This was weighing up how to put further restrictions on a circuit breaker with minimal economic impact because the Scottish Government didn’t have the means to fully support a full circuit breaker lockdown.
“We needed the UK Treasury to open up furlough to do that.
“This was about seeing what we wanted to do in public health terms, but what we couldn’t do without putting pressure on the UK Government to force a change of decision.”
We are now going to a WhatsApp exchange between Liz Lloyd and Nicola Sturgeon during Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s public address in October 2020 to announce a second national lockdown.
Liz Lloyd said: “Hitting 15 minutes between football and Strictly, let’s never do it like this.”
Ms Sturgeon replied: “Comms is beyond awful. We’re not perfect but we don’t get enough credit for how much better we are.
“This is f***ing excruciating, their comms are awful.
“His utter incompetence in every sense is now offending me on behalf of politicians everywhere.
“He is a f***ing clown.”
We are now seeing WhatsApps between Liz Lloyd and Nicola Sturgeon on ending furlough papers.
In the messages Ms Lloyd said: “I think I just want a good old-fashioned rammy [with the UK Government] so I can think about something other than sick people.”
The counsel has asked her to explain this and she said: “This is an expression of frustration that we were not able to manage the pandemic at this point in time in the way we wanted.
“‘Good old-fashioned rammy’ is language I would rarely use, actually.
“There were a lot of things in Covid the UK Government did or didn’t do and we just let it go.
“I felt the issue of furlough was materially important to the handling of the pandemic, it was a hindrance to our ability to handle the pandemic.
“I was angry it had blocked our ability to do what we wanted to do, and that expresses that frustration bubbling over a bit.”
She said this was “looking for a public spat for a purpose” as it could deliver results.
Ms Lloyd disputed this comment had anything to do with independence.
Ms Lloyd says there was a reluctance in general to take a four nations approach to mixing over Christmas.
She said saying Scots couldn’t have a Christmas when the UK Government did was a “very difficult position”.
Ms Lloyd says this is an example of the UK Government’s “chaotic and shambolic approach”, particularly as the Scottish Government was being asked to sign up to something they had no input into.
Liz Lloyd says Nicola Sturgeon was “incredibly focused” on the Covid pandemic and “devoted vast amounts of time” to this.
She was asked if this amount of focus was also given to Scottish independence during the pandemic, and she said that largely came from Constitution Secretary.
Liz Lloyd says public communication during the pandemic was incredibly important.
She said: “We needed to be honest, clear, to trust people and build cohesion amongst the public about the actions we were asking them to take.
“A lot of the focus was on explaining why we were asking them to do certain things and helping people to understand the situation we were in, and encouraging the behaviours we needed people to undertake to mitigate the spread of the virus.”
Liz Lloyd now says early in the pandemic there were arguments people should have known more about certain events and certain cases.
We are now being shown an email exchange about a Nike conference on 25th to 27th of February 2020.
In an email it says they are conscious a number of Scottish cases connect to one event (the Nike conference), and suggested it could be reassuring for the public to understand this, saying it is a “legitimate public interest matter”.
Former Chief Medical Officer Dr Catherine Calderwood was very conscious about patient confidentiality and didn’t want to reveal too much information about the Nike conference because it would be easy to find the people who were infected.
This was particularly because the first Covid patient in Scotland had media on their doorstep.
Liz Lloyd says her preference would have been to say a number of cases at the beginning were connected to the Nike conference.
There were 71 delegates at the conference which was held in Edinburgh.
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