Recently more evidence has emerged about the SNP’s mismanagement of the NHS, with a health board handing out contracts without any arrangements to ensure value for money. This follows revelations that health boards had been using charitable donations to pay their running costs.

We also saw additional evidence that Scotland’s economy is lagging behind our international competitors with employment continuing to fall and unemployment continuing to rise. The same set of statistics showed that employment in the UK as a whole had reached a record high.

Our NHS is failing and our economy is lagging behind the rest of the UK because the separatists are obsessed with securing a second independence referendum.

We can see this in their depute leadership contest with the candidates falling over themselves to predict the earliest date for another referendum.

With the SNP continuing to focus on independence at the expense of governing Scotland, only the Scottish Conservatives can force this government to get back to the day job of managing our public services.

Cllr Alastair Redman