SNP’S priorities?

“There is no bigger priority than tackling climate change.” So says a Scottish Government spokesman (The Scotsman, 18 May). I’m finding it difficult to keep up. So tackling climate change is a higher priority than education? Or Brexit?

Or even the all-transcending independence?

This new-found zeal for the environment is welcome but it does have consequences. It has already resulted in a U-turn on Air Passenger duty (APD). Reducing it gradually to zero was going to be a significant boost for the Scottish economy.

The SNP are finding, however, that it is easier to lobby clamorously for powers than it is to actually do something with them when they have them.

The decision to back a third Heathrow runway– astonishing as it was–was justified on the grounds that it would boost the economy with the addition of 16,000 jobs. It would also perhaps have made the purchase of Prestwick less of a £9 million-a-year pig in the poke as it was hoped it would be a hub connecting to Heathrow. This policy, too, is now being reviewed.

In both of these cases the rethink would seem to have been a consequence of the SNP’S light bulb moment of realisation that more flights might have an impact on the environment!

And what of the future? Presumably the “ban” on fracking will finally become a genuine legally enforced ban and the untold billions of barrels of oil we are constantly told are at our disposal will be left in the ground?

All very noble–but not exactly stimulating optimism in terms of the economy.

Perhaps therein lies the rub. We’ve been told that a second independence campaign would have at its heart a drive to persuade us that an inde - pendent Scotland would have a successful economy – eventually. Yet already the economy seems to be moving down the pecking order.

Opinion polls have shown very clearly that convincing the Scottish public that the economy would improve with independence is a very tall order. Solution? Declare a climate emergency and make that the big issue.

Perhaps a new slogan will be required to go with this policy revamp. Greener for Scotland?

COLIN HAMILTON Braid Hills Avenue, Edinburgh