It is fitting that another much-headlined “flagship policy” should bite the dust on the day before Nicola Sturgeon packed her trunk and said goodbye to the Holyrood circus.

The legacy of waste and incompetence lives on. Indeed, the great heat pump U-turn is a metaphor on how Scotland has long been run and in case anyone did not notice, John Swinney – architect of the Bute House Agreement with the Greens – was present throughout.

How much, one wonders, has been spent on the Heat in Buildings Bill since it reared its head in 2021 until abandonment this week? How many civil service hours? How much on the consultation? How many neglected options for actually addressing fuel poverty where need is greatest, urban and rural?

The consultation found that 41 per cent of Scottish homes which use electricity as their primary heating source were in fuel poverty as opposed to 16 per cent for gas. That was in 2023 – maybe, at latest, it was the point at which reality should have kicked in.

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However, the bill was born of a righteous insistence that people would be forced to behave in a certain way, whether they could afford to or not. Equally, the practical obstacles which make it nigh-well impossible to instal heat pumps in large numbers of Scottish homes were brushed aside.

The bill was a product of Patrick Harvie’s presence in government, as negotiated by Mr Swinney. It now takes its place with the Deposit Return Scheme, Highly Protected Marine Areas and much........

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