NICOLA STURGEON branded Boris Johnson “a f***** clown” as he announced the second pandemic lockdown, the UK Covid-19 Inquiry heard today.

The WhatsApp exhange was revealed as the former first minister’s chief of staff, Liz Lloyd, gave evidence.

It emerged that exchanges between them before September 1 2020 no longer existed, despite Ms Lloyd telling the inquiry she was not aware of any Scottish government policy to delete WhatsApp messages covering “informal” exchanges

In one surviving exchange, Ms Sturgeon described Mr Johnson’s announcement of a second lockdown as “f****** excruciating,” branded him a “f****** clown” and added  “his utter incompetence in every sense is now offending me on behalf of politicians everywhere.”

Ms Lloyd was forced to deny the crisis was being used to further the cause of independence after a minute from July 2020 raised the issue as a “priority.”

She said: “It does look a bit like the politicisation of the coronavirus pandemic, doesn’t it?”

First Minister Humza Yousaf responded to increasing pressure over deleted messages by announcing an externally led review into WhatsApps and how they are retained.

Mr Yousaf faced questions not only on the matter of vital discussions taking place on deleted WhatsApp groups, but also regarding voice notes between national clinical director Jason Leitch and Ms Sturgeon.

Asked by counsel if all these notes had made their way onto the public record, Mr Yousaf said: “If there were occasions when that did not happen … we would ensure that those decisions and salient points related to those decisions were indeed on the corporate record.”

Aamer Anwar, lead solicitor for the Scottish Covid bereaved, said: “It’s time for the words games to stop.

“No announced external review resolves the fact that critical evidence was being destroyed on an industrial scale, despite individuals knowing a public inquiry would require this material.

“So far all we have seen is a culture of impunity, of arrogance, of contempt. It is time for the selective amnesia to stop.

“The Scottish Covid bereaved genuinely believed that our politicians would do better.

“Yet instead, over the last few days and months, the bereaved have been insulted, abused, told to shut up and attacked for trying to hold our government to account.

“Government and former First Minister Nicola Sturgeon’s conduct to date begs the question what they were trying to hide.”

The UK Covid-19 Inquiry continues.