This article appears as part of the Winds of Change newsletter.

The Scottish Greens last week got personal in their push for the introduction of a tax on private jet users. Rather than focus on the many anonymous private jet passengers, they targeted in on one, a US Presidential candidate, former president and occasional visitor to a Scotland he has been known to call “home”.

Yes, you've guessed it. Such a tax could raise £250,000, we were told, every time Donald Trump visits Scotland. It could also, applied to all private jet users, raise enough money, say the Greens, to pay for the removal of peak rail travel.

As MSP Ross Greer put it: “A private jet tax would raise money for our public services but its real aim would be to keep the super-rich and their destructive toys on the ground. It would of course have the added bonus of keeping the notoriously tight and cash-strapped Donald J Trump out of Scotland. That's a gift you couldn't even begin to put a price tag on.”

This private jet levy would represent a new ‘super rate’ of Air Departure Tax (the planned but not yet introduced Scottish replacement for Air Passenger Duty), for private jet passengers.

This would be pitched at 10 percent above the current top rate of the new tax, which will also have bands of duty for different distances of flights.

The Scottish Greens' calculations for Trump run thus: “The distance between Scotland and Trump’s........

© Herald Scotland