Boris Johnson was ‘wrong person to be PM’, Sturgeon tells Covid inquiry
Nicola Sturgeon has said that Boris Johnson was the “wrong person” to be prime minister during her appearance at the Covid-19 inquiry today.
The former Scottish first minister is giving evidence to the inquiry amid ongoing scrutiny around the deletion of WhatsApp messages.
Inquiry lawyer Jamie Dawson told Ms Sturgeon that a number of witnesses have suggested that Mr Johnson was the “wrong prime minister for this crisis” and asked her if this is a view she shares.
Ms Sturgeon replied “yes”.
She told the inquiry: “I don’t think I’m betraying any secrets here when I say Boris Johnson was the wrong person to be prime minister, full stop.”
Asked if she believed herself to be the right first minister for the job during Covid, she replied: “No, that’s not how I thought at all. I was the first minister when the pandemic struck.
“There’s a large part of me that wishes I hadn’t been,” she added, becoming emotional.
“But I was, and I wanted to be the best first minister I could be during that period. It’s for others to judge the extent to which I succeeded.”
Ms Sturgeon, who resigned as first minister of Scotland after eight years in February 2023, said at times she felt “overwhelmed” by the scale of what they were dealing with regarding the Covid-19 pandemic and there was an “overwhelming” responsibility to do the best she could.
She also said that despite what she thought about Mr Johnson at the start of pandemic, she thought everyone was doing their best.
At an earlier stage of questioning, Ms Sturgeon was quizzed about her WhatsApp communications.
Several figures from Ms Sturgeon’s government have already been questioned at the inquiry about their deletion of WhatsApp messages sent and received during the pandemic.
Asked if she deleted her WhatsApp messages, Ms Sturgeon said confirmed she had.
She said her WhatsApp messages “weren’t retained” rather than deleted.
Jamie Dawson KC asked Ms Sturgeon: “But did you delete them?”
Ms Sturgeon said: “Yes, in the manner I have set out.”
She told the inquiry that it was “not my style and it’s never been my practise” to use WhatsApp to make decisions during the pandemic “because it’s not a helpful process in reaching decisions”.
Ms Sturgeon said she deleted informal messages, in line with official advice, and “salient” points were all recorded on the corporate record.
“I operated from 2007, based on advice, the policy that messages, business relating to government, should not be kept on a phone that could be lost or stolen and insecure in that way, but properly recorded through the system,” she said.
While she had not retained the messages on her own devices, Ms Sturgeon said she managed to retrieve copies from the Scottish government to submit to the inquiry.
