Scottish Greens’ co-leader Lorna Slater is set to be forced into another embarrassing U-turn, delaying Scotland’s Bottle and Can deposit scheme despite promising to implement the programme in the party’s manifesto. What excuse can they possibly have now they’re in government?

The scheme – which requires shops to install recycling machines and charge a 20p deposit on every can and bottle – was due to be launched in July next year, three years after it was originally unveiled. Yesterday, Nicola Sturgeon’s cabinet was told that the scheme will be postponed until either March or October 2023 and Slater will confirm this in Holyrood today. Bottled it.

This U-turn has caused a huge upset amongst Greenpeace tree huggers who mocked Slater and the Scottish Green Party on Twitter.

This isn’t the first time Scottish Greens have U-turned on manifesto pledges. In September the Scottish Greens were forced into a humiliating U-turn after they failed to halt the construction of large scale waste incinerators despite promising to do so in their manifesto. Surprisingly it seems the Greens are just about managing to avoid suffering Clegg’s popularity death since entering government…