WhatsApps show Nicola Sturgeon calling Boris Johnson "a f****** clown"

The UK Covid inquiry has been told WhatsApp messages between Liz Lloyd and Nicola Sturgeon showed the former first minister calling former UK prime minister Boris Johnson "a f** clown" when he was announcing another national lockdown on October 31, 2020.

Ms Sturgeon said his address was "f** excruciating" and that the UK communications were "awful".

Ms Sturgeon also told Ms Lloyd: "His utter incompetence in every sense is now offending me on behalf of politicians everywhere."

READ MORE: UK Covid Inquiry: Scottish government didn't accept Covid was here to stay.

Ms Lloyd began her evidence to the inquiry at the International Conference Centre in the capital earlier.

Close confidantes

Junior counsel to the inquiry Usman Tariq asked Ms Lloyd if they had a "particularly close" relationship.

Ms Lloyd said: "Certainly, yes."

Mr Tariq asked: "Is it fair to say you were one of her closest confidantes?"

Ms Lloyd answered: "Yes, I would say so."

Messages continued showing Liz Lloyd telling Nicola Sturgeon she wanted a "good old-fashioned rammy" with the UK Government so she could "think about something other than sick people".

Former adviser Ms Lloyd told Ms Sturgeon she had "set a timetable" for the UK Government to answer the Scottish Government on furlough as a "purely political" move in the messages between herself and the former first minister on November 1, 2020.

Ms Sturgeon said: "Yeah, I get it. And it might be worth doing. I've sent a rough formulation of what I might say tomorrow."

Former adviser Liz Lloyd said the Scottish Government were "clearly not complimentary about their (the UK Government) communications handling".

She said: "We had to mitigate the chaos that appeared around some of the decisions they took."

READ MORE: UK Covid Inquiry: Leitch told Yousaf to 'hold a drink' in mask 'workaround'.

Junior counsel to the inquiry Usman Tariq asked Ms Lloyd if the relationship between the then first minister and then prime minister had "broken down".

She said: "That overstates what was there to break."

She said of Boris Johnson: "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 Ms Sturgeon's strong language showed her "frustration" towards Mr Johnson.

Liz Lloyd said she was looking for a "public spat with a purpose" in relation to the UK Government.

A spat with a purpose

Junior counsel to the inquiry Usman Tariq asked former adviser Ms Lloyd if she was looking for a spat.

Ms Lloyd said: "I was looking for a spat with a purpose.

"It had been shown in the past that they would sometimes change their mind if they felt that pressure and I wanted them to change their mind."

Handwritten notes shown earlier in evidence showed Ms Lloyd suggesting a possible strategy of "calling for things" that the Scottish Government could not do to "force the UK Government to do things".

The inquiry continues.

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