Nicola’s Covid Inquiry farewell leaves her legacy in tatters - Susan Dalgety

So farewell Nicola Sturgeon. The woman who for nearly ten years ruled Scotland with an iron grip that Margaret Thatcher could only dream of, even in her heyday.

Former first minister Nicola Sturgeon departs the UK Covid inquiry at the Edinburgh International Conference Centre. Picture: Jeff J Mitchell/Getty Images

The former first minister entered Edinburgh’s conference centre last week, her reputation hanging by a thread. She left a few hours later, a changed woman. Her carefully calculated persona of competence and probity shattered by a few gently probing questions from Jamie Dawson KC and Lady Hallett.

Her appearance at the UK Covid inquiry, where she admitted deleting WhatsApp messages during the pandemic, held no real surprises.

Very few people believed her back in August 2021 when she promised, live on TV, that she would not get rid of any material relating to the pandemic. She was often economical with the truth, always preferring Sturgeon-world to the real one.

No-one was taken aback by the revelation that she took advice from only a handful of people, going as far as to deliberately exclude the then Finance Minister, Kate Forbes, from key meetings, even as the economy teetered. Her reputation as a closed-minded control freak was well known.

And no-one thought that she would stop plotting a road to independence even as the country went into lockdown and thousands died. Independence has been her defining mission since she was 16 years old. The small matter of a global pandemic was not going to get in her way.

The surprise for me, and perhaps for others, is how this mediocre politician managed to persuade the entire country – even those who opposed her – that she was a towering statesperson in the first place.

The truth that emerged last week is that Nicola Sturgeon in real life is far more mundane than TV’s Nicola Sturgeon. She managed to pull the wool over our eyes through a clever use of block colours, high heels, a hectoring tone and a ruthless disdain for the truth – all tailored suits and no integrity.

She will remain a backbench MSP for the next two years – assuming the police investigation that led to her arrest last June doesn’t uncover another scandal. But she has no legacy, no reputation, nothing but her thoughts of what might have been.