Green Minister’s the Queen of hypocrisy

IT IS beginning to look as if Scottish Government Minister Lorna Slater has forgotten that she is co-leader of the Scottish Greens.

If her actions are anything to go by, her passion for environmental protection is little more than theoretical.

Ms Slater was last week lambasted by political opponents for chartering a private boat to take her to the island of Rum rather than use the existing ferry service.

Today, The Mail on Sunday reveals that is just the tip of an iceberg of hypocrisy. Despite her party’s insistence that the rest of us should use public transport, Ms Slater seems to be addicted to using government limousines.

In one instance, she made a 350-mile chauffeur-driven round trip to visit an environmental project.

But no trip is too small for Ms Slater to call on her personal driver.

Among 50 trips by Ministerial car, are short journeys in Edinburgh where buses and trams could easily have been used. And even when she has taken her own advice and used public transport, a limo has been driven to her destination so that she may use it upon her arrival. This farcical scenario played out during a recent Ministerial visit to Aberdeen.

Ms Slater – who became a list MSP for the Lothian region in 2021 – has proved to be a disastrously inept Minister. Her stewardship of the Deposit Return Scheme, aimed at recycling bottle and cans, was so bad that its implementation, due to take place in August, has had to be delayed until next March.

Along with fellow Minister Patrick Harvie, Ms Slater presides over a party defined by piety.

The Scottish Greens are never more comfortable than when sitting, crosslegged, on the moral high ground.

But, as is so often the case with moralising politicians, Lorna Slater adopts a ‘do as I say, not as I do’ approach.