Nicola Sturgeon described Boris Johnson as “a fucking clown” at the height of the pandemic, it has emerged.
The former first minister made her frustrations with the then prime minister clear in a WhatsApp message to a top aide.
The exchange, on October 31, 2020, was revealed as Liz Lloyd, Sturgeon’s former chief of staff, gave evidence to the Covid Inquiry in Edinburgh.
That night, Johnson held a Downing Street press conference to announce another month-long lockdown as the Covid-19 virus continued to spread.
At one point, Sturgeon says: “Their comms are beyond awful. We’re not perfect but we don’t get nearly enough credit for how much better than them we are.”
She then adds: “This is fucking excruciating - their comms are AWFUL.
“His utter incompetence in every sense is now offending me on behalf of politicians everywhere.”
Later in the WhatsApp chat, Sturgeon says: “He is a fucking clown.”
At the Downing Street press conference that night, Johnson told the country “you must stay at home” as Covid cases rose.
He added: “We will get through this – but we must act now to contain this autumn surge.
“We are not going back to the full-scale lockdown of March and April. It is less prohibitive and less restrictive.
“But from Thursday the basic message is the same - stay at home. Protect the NHS. And save lives.”
Sturgeon’s comments highlight the tensions which existed between Johnson’s government and the devolved administrations in Scotland and Wales.
The Covid Inquiry has already heard that Johnson thought it was “wrong” for him to hold regular meetings during the pandemic with Sturgeon and Welsh first minister Mark Drakeford.
In his written evidence to the inquiry, he said: “It is optically wrong, in the first place, for the UK prime minister to hold regular meetings with other [devolved administration] first ministers, as though the UK were a kind of mini-EU of four nations and we were meeting as a ‘council’ in a federal structure.”
However, the former PM has also said he had “friendly” relations with Sturgeon during the pandemic.
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