Euan McColm: WhatsApp bluster shows SNP has lost the power to shrug off scandal

First Minister Humza Yousaf cannot escape the growing perception his Government has something to hide when it comes to its handling of the pandemic, writes Euan McColm

It is, I’m afraid, a fact of political life that the more successful a party, the easier it is for its representatives to get away with breaking the rules.

A dominant party enjoys the protection of a thick skin, made of the blind loyalty of its followers and the confidence of its leaders. Opposition politicians may produce all the evidence they like about the ruling party’s fallibility but punches never quite land, scandals rarely take hold.

If we rewind to May 2021, for example, we find the case of a Holyrood committee concluding then First Minister Nicola Sturgeon had misled the Scottish Parliament in her accounts of meetings with Alex Salmond after allegations of inappropriate behaviour from number of women. Sturgeon shrugged off this criticism which would have seriously wounded a less powerful and popular politician.

When the SNP was at its most dominant, Sturgeon treated all sorts of legitimate concerns with ill-concealed disdain. If an opponent dared highlight a serious failing, she would point out her party kept winning elections; success made all scandals survivable.

Former Prime Minister Boris Johnson was shielded from the consequences of his appalling behaviour by his electoral success right up until the moment he wasn’t.

Those days when the SNP seemed an unstoppable force are gone. Under the new management of Humza Yousaf, the party is weakening by the day. And with that, the Nats no longer find it easy to shrug away scandal.

The ongoing saga of precisely what information the Scottish Government has supplied to the UK Covid Inquiry is inflicting body blow after body blow upon Yousaf and his administration.

Before we pick through the ways in which this issue is damaging the government by exposing a culture of secrecy and evasion, we should start with a simple fact: In the very early stages of the Coronavirus pandemic, former First Minister Nicola Sturgeon was perfectly clear that there would be an inquiry into the way in which her government had responded. On May 27, 2020, in response to a question about covid-infected pensioners being discharged from hospitals and sent to care homes where the virus killed hundreds, Sturgeon told the Scottish Parliament: “I not only expect but absolutely want there to be a review or inquiry – people can call it what they want – into every aspect of the crisis. That is vital for accountability, but also to learn lessons for the future, and it will undoubtedly include what the situation was in care homes.”

So, no member of the Scottish Government may plausibly say that they didn’t expect to be asked to comply with the inquiry now underway.

Recent weeks have seen a series of deeply disturbing revelations and a barrage of doublespeak from SNP politicians.

Last month, along with reports that Sturgeon had deleted from her phone WhatsApp messages sent during the pandemic, we learned from Covid Inquiry lawyer Jamie Dawson KC that no messages had been provided from the country’s government.

According to deputy First Minister, Shona Robison, this was a simple matter of procedure. As soon as a legal order was made, 14,000 messages would be provided to the inquiry. So far as both Robison and Yousaf were concerned, the problem was that the Inquiry had waited so long to request messages.

However, on Wednesday just passed, Robison issued a statement - near to the close of parliamentary business - which flatly contradicted the version of events both she and her boss had previously described.

The Deputy First Minister confirmed in her statement on Wednesday that the first request from the UK Covid Inquiry for messages was, in fact, made in November last year. Robison admitted that the UK inquiry had insisted on the clarification after her previous claims about the timeline of events.

Since Yousaf had previously supported his deputy’s incorrect version of events, opposition politicians – not unreasonably – accused the two most powerful politicians in the country of misleading parliament.

All of this teed up an excruciating performance from Yousaf during First Minister’s Question Time on Thursday afternoon.

Challenged by Scottish Tory leader Douglas Ross over the mess, Yousaf said his government had interpreted requests for messages from the UK inquiry “too narrowly”.

Any cheap dates out there may find this an acceptable explanation for the First Minister’s wild inconsistency. Others may detect bullshit.

Throughout a tetchy session in the debating chamber, Yousaf tried to point out an assortment of squirrels: Boris Johnson was a wrong ’un; it was the Tories who feared scrutiny; UK cabinet secretary said working for the Johnson administration was “like taming wild animals”. But he failed to convince that his government had behaved appropriately.

Throughout his exchanges with Ross and Labour’s Anas Sarwar, Yousaf repeated that he had supplied his own WhatsApp messages to the Covid Inquiry “unredacted” as if not hiding potentially vital information represented uncommon openness and not the bare minimum we should expect of him.

Yousaf may have regretted his focus on the lack of redaction of his messages when Sarwar raised the issue of the submission to the inquiry of legal advice received by the Scottish Government.

The Scottish Labour leader pointed out that – despite inquiry lawyers having twice requested unredacted legal advice – the information supplied by the Scottish Government has been incomplete and, in some cases, “almost entirely redacted”. This meant the inquiry was constrained from fully carrying out its function.

Cue more nonsense from the First Minister who claimed he could not comment on legal advice. The truth is that Yousaf could provide the advice – supplied by his government’s legal officers – if he wanted. In time, he will, I expect, be forced to do so.

The days when the SNP could bluster its way out of trouble have passed. Humza Yousaf cannot escape the growing perception his Government has something to hide when it comes to its handling of the pandemic.