The appearance of the Cabinet Secretary for lots of things, Mairi McAllan before Holyrood’s Net Zero Committee, bordered on the comedic. Weaned on the politics of nationalism, Ms McAllan learned the basic script along with her nursery rhymes – it’s always someone else’s fault.

Questioned on the SNP government’s abandonment of the target to cut emissions by 75 per cent by 2030, Ms McAllan said she had been “advised” that other parties wanted to set the target even higher. It was as if the wise people in SNP government had gone against their own better judgment out of respect for their opponents. Aye, right.

Ms McAllan seemed to have missed out on the years during which our great leaders then paraded our “world-leading” targets as evidence of both moral superiority and, of course, difference from lesser mortals to the south without actually doing an awful lot to demonstrate it.

Instead, she intoned: “I say that to make absolutely clear my view that it is not any inaction on behalf of the (Scottish) Government in the meantime that has necessitated the need to change this - this was always beyond what was possible. And the legal obligation around it has crystallised under the climate change plan, so I must now change it to make progress.”

Is that “absolutely clear”? No, I thought not. In fact, it is complete gobbledegook in which Ms McAllan may have gained a Masters Degree from the University of Bannockburn before becoming a Special Adviser.

Setting a target “beyond what was possible” and then boasting endlessly until it all ended up in hubris just about sums up the........

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