Nicola Sturgeon emotional as she is grilled at Covid inquiry
Andrew Neil claimed Nicola Sturgeon cried at the Covid inquiry because she knows her "reputation is now in tatters".
The veteran journalist accused the former Scottish first minister of a "career-destroying cover-up" over the deletion of WhatsApps from the pandemic.
He compared Ms Sturgeon to ex-US President Richard Nixon who resigned over the Watergate scandal.
In a post on social media platform X, Mr Neil said: "Nicola Sturgeon is the Richard Nixon of Scottish politics. Wins by a landslide then humbled and discredited forever by a career-destroying cover-up. Two matters need underlining:
"1. When she haughtily told the Channel 4 reporter that of course she would submit her WhatsApp messages to the inquiry she was already deleting them. Doesn’t get worse than that.
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"2. She says she was following government guidelines by deleting — her phone could fall into wrong hands etc. We’ve never seen these guidelines or discovered who told her to follow these protocols.
"But it’s a nonsense anyway since it would surely mean the emails and other messages on her phone should have been deleted too for that sort of security risk. They weren’t.
"Her reputation is now in tatters. She knows that. That’s why she cried."
The Watergate scandal stemmed from the Nixon administration's attempts to cover up its involvement in the 1972 break-in of the Democratic National Committee headquarters at the Watergate Office Building.
Nicola Sturgeon is the Richard Nixon of Scottish politics. Wins by a landslide then humbled and discredited forever by a career-destroying cover up. Two matters need underlining:
1. When she haughtily told the Channel 4 reporter that of course she would submit her WhatsApp…
— Andrew Neil (@afneil) February 1, 2024
Mr Neil's comments come after Ms Sturgeon admitted deleting WhatsApps from the pandemic during an appearance before the Covid inquiry in Edinburgh yesterday.
She said this was for security reasons in line with Scottish Government policy.
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Ms Sturgeon also acknowledged she could have been more "clear" when she told a Channel 4 journalist in August 2021 that any inquiry would have access to her messages when, in fact, many had been wiped months before that.
She choked back tears at one point as she said there was a "large part of me" that wished she was not first minster during Covid.
She also became emotional as she denied suggestions she used the crisis for political purposes.
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