Sturgeon has had a marathon run at the Covid Inquiry which doesn’t leave her looking rosy. She tried to argue that she didn’t delete her WhatsApp messages, which just “weren’t retained“. Sturgeon was pressed repeatedly by Jamie Dawson KC. “But did you delete them?” he asked. Sturgeon said: “Yes”. On top of that, Nicola:

• Argued she “did not take decisions for political reasons” and that IndyRef work was suspended in March 2020. Guido is reminded of secret minutes of a Scottish Cabinet meeting from June 2020 which stated ministers “agreed that consideration be given to restarting work on independence and a referendum”…
• Admitted that decisions were made and work undertaken, for example on expanding testing capacity, without any official documentation at all.
• Couldn’t explain why Kate Forbes, then finance minister and leadership rival, was kept out of response planning meetings.
• Was shown messages which displayed decisions were made informally over WhatsApp despite Sturgeon claiming they were not.
• Insisted she “had a strong commitment to four nations working” despite regularly trying to undermine the UK government response.
• Said “I thought Boris Johnson was the wrong person to be prime minister, full stop” while at the same time claiming : “I don’t think in my entire life have I ever thought less about politics generally and independence in particular than I did during the course of the pandemic“. Even as she uses the inquiry itself to play politics…
• Tried to deflect the disruptive effect of Scotland’s Chief Medical Officer resigning over rule-breaking by saying it “stands in contrast to other incidents“. A clear Cummings jibe.
• Admitted “we absolutely didn’t get” all decisions right after Sturgeon spent much of the first half of the pandemic giving lip service to a Zero Covid strategy, egged on by her top advisor Devi Sridhar.
• Admitted she should “probably not” have tweeted derisive messages about Boris’ visit to Edinburgh. Sturgeon then argued she was only responding to “a particular narrative” from No 10…

Sturgeon broke into tears in the afternoon à la Matt Hancock and said “I was the First Minister when the pandemic struck and part of me wishes I hadn’t been“. So do we…