Meeting of the Parliament 31 January 2024
We had a question in the office about how long it would take the SNP to mention Boris Johnson—I had gone for earlier than four minutes, in fairness.
Let us focus on what we are discussing here: the UK Covid inquiry meeting in Scotland and the actions of the SNP Scottish Government during the pandemic.
We also know that, as well as “winging it”, the First Minister admitted, when he was health secretary, that he would
“get found out sooner rather than later”.
On that, I think that we can agree that Humza Yousaf was correct. He should not just be apologising for his Government’s failure to hand over WhatsApp messages; he should also be apologising for the crass content of those messages and how that has impacted the families of the Covid bereaved.
In recent days, and again earlier today when the former First Minister was questioned at the inquiry, we have found out about minutes that were not taken of key meetings that were even kept secret from cabinet secretaries. Members of the Scottish Government Cabinet, who were tasked by all of us to make responsible decisions during the pandemic, were excluded from those meetings. Worse than that, we had the former First Minister and her chief of staff plotting to start a
“good old-fashioned rammy”
with the UK Government for “purely political” reasons. Let me just repeat that. Nicola Sturgeon and her closest spin doctor thought that they should be acting in purely political ways during a global pandemic. Does any SNP member want to intervene to defend that? None of them—
John Mason rose—