I know who I’d prefer in charge in a crisis and it isn’t Boris Johnson - Vladimir McTavish

Former Scottish first minister Nicola Sturgeon gives evidence to the UK Covid-19 Inquiry hearing at the Edinburgh International Conference Centre

We are now into week two of the Scottish leg of the UK Covid Inquiry, and Nicola Sturgeon’s evidence. Jamie Dobson, KC accused the former FM of taking decisions for “political reasons”. Of course she did. This line of questioning totally ignores the fact that the UK government took all of their decisions during the pandemic for political reasons.

Dobson then went on to suggest that the Scottish government were “asleep at the wheel” at the outbreak of Covid. If that is the case, then Boris Johnson and Matt Hancock were lying comatose in the outside lane of the M1 in the path of an oncoming juggernaut.

Even if she did take decisions for political reasons, can there be no better “political reason” than doing the exact opposite of what Boris Johnson decided to do ? Which, in case you may have forgotten, was to ignore the whole problem in the hope that it might go away. Apparently, four years down the line, doing something rather than nothing, to halt a global pandemic was a “political” decision.

Sturgeon was accused of “jumping the gun” in taking decisions before Westminster. But let’s not forget the way in which Downing Street jumped the gun in relaxing restrictions.

“Let the bodies pile up” was Johnson’s response to calls for a second lockdown, fearful of the financial implications to his buddies in big business taking another hit.

And let’s not forget the decisions to jump the gun taken by his then-Chancellor, now of course successor as PM, in launching “Eat Out To Help Out”, a ridiculous scheme where Rishi Sunak doled out millions of ten-pound meal vouchers. This was supposed to give a much-needed kick-start to the hospitality sector. In truth, all it provided was a kick-start to the second wave of the pandemic. Sturgeon has been accused of being a control freak. A valid point but hardly a revelation.

Anyone living in Scotland between March 2020 and spring of 2021 would have become used to her daily press briefings. Any political leader who uses the broadcast media to address the nation every single day at the same time is quite obviously a total control freak. But, in a time of national crisis, who would you rather have in charge? A control freak as First Minister of Scotland or an out-of-control freak who viewed the job of Prime Minister as being at best a sideline, or at worst an inconvenient hobby?

Let me say now that I am not banging the drum for Nicola Sturgeon. She is a great communicator, but her record in office on education standards and drug deaths was poor.

The deleted WhatsApps do leave a bad smell. However, I do believe that she led us through the unprecedented conditions of the pandemic in a way that made her counterparts south of the Border look feckless, clueless and out of touch.

I think she is being made to pay for that now, by an inquiry appointed by Boris Johnson for political reasons.