31 January 2024 , 13:03
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Nicola Sturgeon choked back tears at the Covid Inquiry as she was asked whether she was the right leader for the crisis.
It came as the ex-First Minister was grilled over her deleted WhatsApp messages and critical decisions made by the Scottish Government during the pandemic. The former SNP chief told the Inquiry she agreed Boris Johnson was the wrong PM for the crisis, adding: "Boris Johnson was the wrong person to be PM, full stop".
But she appeared emotional when quizzed on whether she believed she was the right First Minister for the job. "I was the First Minister when the pandemic struck," she said. "There's a large part of me that wishes I wouldn't have been. 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 told the Inquiry she felt "overwhelmed" by the scale of what the government was grappling with when Covid struck. She said: "At times in those early days, I felt overwhelmed by the scale of what we were dealing with and perhaps more than anything, I felt an overwhelming responsibility to do the best I could."
She fought back tears for a second time later in the evidence session as she apologised to those who had lost loved ones in Scotland. She said: "I wish with every fibre of my being that the decisions my government have been able to take could have reduced the number of people in Scotland who did lose someone to Covid.
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"I am deeply sorry to each and every bereaved person, and each and every person who suffered in other ways. I did my best, my government did our best and people will judge that, but I know that every day I tried my best and those working with me tried their best to steer this country through the Covid pandemic in the best way we could."
The former Scottish First Minister also admitted she had deleted WhatsApp messages sent to officials during the crisis. Ms Sturgeon claimed her messages "weren't retained". But asked by Inquiry counsel Jamie Dawson KC whether she deleted them, the ex-SNP leader replied: "Yes, in the manner I have set out."
Ms Sturgeon insisted during the hearing she did not use the messaging platform to make government decisions during the crisis, which involved a "high degree of formality".
While WhatsApp had become "too common" a means of communication within the Scottish Government, Ms Sturgeon said she exchanged WhatsApps with no more than a "handful" of people, and was not a member of any groups, with now First Minister Humza Yousaf, and her former chief of staff, Liz Lloyd, the main people she communicated with in his way. Last week it emerged Ms Sturgeon had branded the ex-PM Mr Johnson a "a f****** clown" in WhatsApp messages to her former aide Ms Lloyd.
Ms Sturgeon also told the Inquiry one of her main regrets during the crisis was not locking down earlier in 2020. She said: "Of the many regrets I have, probably chief of those is that we didn't lock down a week, two weeks, earlier than we did." But Pamela Thomas, one of the Scottish Covid bereaved group who lost her brother during the pandemic, said: "Crocodile tears aren't washing with me".
The Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar also said there was a "huge sense of betrayal" amongst the public north of the border. Asked what he thought of Ms Sturgeon breaking down at the Inquiry, he said: "I'll take the words of the COVID bereaved. They said they didn't want tears. They don't want emotion. They don't want an apology. They don't want the repetition of the script that we've heard now for two years. They wanted answers. And I think the answers they did get is only going to further enrage them, rather than give them comfort.
He added: "And so I know it took a heavy impact on Nicola Sturgeon. But the pandemic didn't just take a heavy impact on her. It took a heavy impact on every citizen of our country. It took the heaviest impact on those that lost loved ones, for example, the COVID bereaved families, they don't trust the answers they're getting from the First Minister. They think there's a sense of betrayal. They've lost trust. And I don't think they're the only ones."