Following a furore regarding the failure to retain WhatsApp messages sent and received during the pandemic, the Scottish First Minister at the time explained that unlike the London based government she didn't use WhatsApp for official messages and had set her phone to auto delete messages including the controversial Scottish Country dancing group, Scottish not so young bakers group and several groups related to virtual birthday parties. All the messages have been provided to the enquiry via other respondents in each group including the motorhome group exchanges, which are being poured over by an unusually large number of researchers for reasons not yet understood.
Critics of the then First Minister have not been assuaged by the revelation that she used official channels for all formal communications and had contemporaneous and handwritten notes copied to the official files, and have asked for further evidence that she didn't pass every passing thought to the enquiry, including an allegation that senior SNP officials used semaphore as a means to pass messages they didn't want making public, despite requiring the senders and receivers needing to stand on public hilltops in Scotland in plain sight.Â
A spokesman commented that flag waving was something 'Miss Sturgeon did do at the time, but not to convey messages related to the pandemic response'.
There is an underlying belief by some that the First Minister may have got around formal records requirements by relaying messages through the medium of interpretive dance, however the spokesman suggested they might be getting confused with the UK MP, Theresa May.