Ian Blackford has defended Nicola Sturgeon after Dominic Cummings accused her of undermining the four-nation approach to the covid pandemic.
During his more than seven hours of evidence to the science and technology, and health and social care committees yesterday Boris Johnson's former special adviser pointed the finger at the First Minister for "babbling" about discussions at COBRA meetings.
Cummings said that the meetings involving the devolved UK leaders in the COBRA national security meetings became a pretence because Sturgeon was beating Downing Street to the cameras with the decisions immediately afterwards.
The SNP's Westminster leader Ian Blackford defended Sturgeon's actions during an interview on BBC Good Morning Scotland earlier.
He said: "I think the public in Scotland recognise the leadership the Scottish Government has given.
"It was interesting that Dominic Cummings was criticising the First Minister for giving information through public briefings to the public post COBRA meetings.
"That was actually in sharp contract to what we saw from Westminster where we've had briefings given to Sunday newspapers, articles often behind paywalls.
"I think there is a sharp difference in the way that the Scottish Government has tried to give leadership through this crisis and that is reflected in public attitudes towards the different governments.
"It is the case everyone of course will have made mistakes as we go through this pandemic, but there's a world of difference in the way that the Scottish Government has behaved over this crisis and the shambles that we're seeing from Westminster."
Blackford's defence of the First Minister came after Cummings took a swipe at her during his evidence session.
He said: "As soon as you had these meetings Nicola Sturgeon would just go straight out announce what she wanted straight afterwards.
“So you had these completely Potemkin meetings without anyone actually digging into the reality in detail, because everybody thought as soon as the meeting is finish everyone’s going to just pop up on TV and start babbling.”
