Nicola Sturgeon called Boris Johnson “a fucking clown” in a private message when he announced a further Covid lockdown on 31 October 2020, the inquiry has heard.
As PA Media reports, at a hearing in Edinburgh this morning the inquiry highlighted WhatsApp messages between Sturgeon and Liz Lloyd, her chief of staff. PA says:
Sturgeon said his address was “fucking excruciating” and that the UK communications were “awful”. Sturgeon also told Lloyd: “His utter incompetence in every sense is now offending me on behalf of politicians everywhere.”
Lloyd said she was “offended” on behalf of special advisers everywhere. Sturgeon replied: “He is a fucking clown.”
Lloyd told Sturgeon she wanted a “good old-fashioned rammy” with the UK government so she could “think about something other than sick people” in WhatsApp messages.
Asked about the messages, Lloyd said the Scottish government were “clearly not complimentary about [the UK government’s] communications handling”.
She said: “We had to mitigate the chaos that appeared around some of the decisions they took.”
Junior counsel to the inquiry Usman Tariq asked Lloyd if the relationship between the then first minister and then prime minister had “broken down”.
Lloyd replied: “That overstates what was there to break.”
Commening on Johnson, she said: “He didn’t want to be on those calls, he wasn’t well briefed, he wasn’t listening, engagement with him became slightly pointless. They didn’t get us anywhere. We started with the approach we should work together, in co-ordinated fashion, but a substantive discussion isn’t what we got. The prime minister was reading a script and would largely ignore points made.”
She said Sturgeon’s strong language showed her “frustration” towards Johnson.
