CAROL Vorderman has issued a clarification after posting a “misleading” tweet about Nicola Sturgeon’s pandemic WhatsApp messages.

News outlets reported on Friday that the former first minister deleted all her messages on the platform related to the coronavirus crisis as the UK inquiry heard she appeared to have “retained no messages whatsoever”.

In the immediate aftermath, Vorderman shared a post listing various UK Government figures who had been in trouble for deleting messages alongside Sturgeon.

But Sturgeon issued a statement on Saturday rebutting some of the reports and emphasising that she did not steer the pandemic response via “informal messaging”.

She added that the inquiry “does have messages between me and those I most regularly communicated with through informal means”.

Sturgeon said she was not a member of any WhatsApp groups.

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Former Countdown star and political campaigner Vorderman has since highlighted the “popular” politician’s comments.

Vorderman added that she had deleted a previous comment she had made on a news story, stressing it had been “misleading”.

She encouraged people to read Sturgeon’s statement “in response to the BBC and other reports”.

Sharing Sturgeon’s statement, Vorderman posted on Twitter/X: “Nicola Sturgeon’s response to the BBC and other reports yday saying she had ‘deleted her WhatsApps’. Pls read.”

After highlighting a key part of the statement, which said Sturgeon was able to obtain copies of messages despite them not being retained on her own device, she added: “She also said she will give her evidence when she's scheduled to soon.

“I'm glad & will delete reference to the original report now, as it seems it was misleading.

“Thank you for all your messages of support for her. She's very popular.”

Sturgeon said any handwritten notes made by her “were passed to my private office to be dealt with and recorded as appropriate” stressing that at all times she acted in line with Scottish Government policy.

“I did not get every decision right - far from it - but I was motivated only, and at all times, by the determination to keep people as safe as possible,” Sturgeon said.

The inquiry also heard that former deputy first minister John Swinney and national clinical director Jason Leitch also regularly deleted WhatsApp messages.

Retired civil servant Ken Thomson, who was giving evidence at the inquiry, denied that this was done to try and defeat Freedom of Information requests.