Welsh First Minister Vaughan Gething hasn’t even been in his post for two months, and already it appears he’s struggling to stay out of trouble. Co-conspirators will remember when the former Welsh health secretary broke his own covid rules more than once – now it’s emerged that he misled the UK covid inquiry over deliberately deleting WhatsApp messages. Devolved leaders have a habit of appearing trigger-happy when it comes to deleting messages…

At the inquiry, Gething said it wasn’t him who deleted any messages, instead when it was serviced by the Senedd’s IT department. A text from Gething in 2020 says otherwise, where he wrote “I’m deleting the messages in this group.” Telling lies at a statutory public inquiry is a criminal offence of perjury – not quite the look the First Minister would hope for. It doesn’t look like he can turn to his own party to rally round him either, with one senior Welsh Labour insider saying “It’s difficult to see how Welsh Labour can [bring Wales together] if there are fundamental doubts about the integrity of the First Minister.” Maybe he can seek support from his Spanish friends instead…