IT IS HIGH time that the SNP government's coalition with the Scottish Greens started to come under serious scrutiny.

The nationalist coalition, as it is quite rightly often referred to, has had its foot on Scotland's neck for two years now.

When it began, it wasn't at all clear why the SNP felt the need to formally begin working with the Scottish Greens, given they had spent the previous five years voting the same way on every issue regardless.

However, go into coalition with them they did. We are now two years down the line, and the results have been as disastrous as anyone could have imagined.

Despite the fact that Scotland's oil and gas sector still supports 100,000 Scottish jobs, and has just reported record-high revenues, we now have a Scottish Government that is actively turning its back on this industry.

Far from committing to support oil and gas in the coming decades, as we slowly transition into renewable forms of energy, the Scottish Greens would be quite happy to bury Scotland's oil in the ground for good.

For the sake of a few additional Holyrood votes, the SNP has switched from chanting "it's Scotland's oil!", to clapping like seals for a party that wishes it wasn't there at all.

All the while, tired and outdated Green policies are infiltrating every portfolio in government.

Rent caps, to take just one example, have failed to address the problem of increasing rents and instead appear to be making this issue even worse.

Of course, all this is before we even mention botched, taxpayer-money-wasting ideas such as Lorna's Slater's failed Deposit Return Scheme.

Given how bad the situation has become, it is only right that questions are being asked about how long this coalition arrangement should continue.

Even leading SNP figures, including recent leadership candidate Kate Forbes, have called for a vote within the SNP on whether the Greens should be kicked out of government.

That this coalition has turned out so badly might be disappointing if it hadn't been so predictable.

Let us not forget, the Scottish Greens are a party who boast how little they care about economic growth.

They are a party so opposed to economic development that they would probably have campaigned against the invention of fire if they'd been given the chance.

They are a party with so little understanding of how economies actually work that they are led by someone who has claimed it is 'not possible' for governments to run out of money.

Only a party as short-sighted as the SNP could have seen the Greens as potentially being a party of government.

For now, Humza Yousaf seems determined to keep his head in the sand on this issue.

Sooner or later though, the SNP will be forced to accept that, no matter how convenient this marriage may appear, the Scottish public can't wait to see the back of it.