The Scottish Government, now largely free of the influence of the Greens we think and hope, has ditched some of its plans on wood-burning stoves. The policy has gone up in smoke. They’ve changed course. They’ve done a U-turn. Although is U-turn the right phrase I wonder?

I ask the question because we know how much politicians fear U-turns and we know who’s to blame for it (you may blame her for other things too): Margaret Thatcher. She did that famous speech where she said the lady’s not for turning even though it never really made sense. In government, Mrs Thatcher did lots of U-turns and, certainly in her first few years, she was extremely pragmatic about changing course if something wasn’t going well. The lady was for turning, and a good thing too.

It's good for a simple reason: if you’ve got something wrong, it’s a bad idea to stick to it regardless and the Scottish Government, while still under the influence of the Greens, got their policy on wood-burning stoves wrong: badly wrong. Now, thanks mainly to Kate Forbes, who’s warmed her feet in front of a wood burner in the Highlands once or twice, the government have accepted they screwed up and have done the U-turn. And they deserve credit for it. They got it wrong. They changed their minds. Good.

The policy they had been thinking of introducing was a ban on all new homes and buildings using direct-emission heating systems, such as oil and gas boilers and wood-burning stoves. Patrick Harvie, who used to be a government minister, I assure you it’s true, google it, said the policy was essential because heating our homes and buildings is responsible for about a fifth of all Scotland’s emissions and we must move to low-carbon heating.

The problem for the policy on stoves, fatally, was........

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