When Alex Salmond announced that Scotland could one day be the “green energy capital of Europe,” he knew that he was facing a tough political test. For that goal was only deliverable if his administration was prepared to support the building of large-scale wind farms in some of the most beautiful and environmentally sensitive parts of the Highlands and Islands – and that was bound to be unpopular.

Still, that’s what makes a robust politician: the kind of leader who is prepared to take difficult decisions because he knows they are right for the nation. Except that he isn’t and he hasn’t. The Lewis wind farm case was a benchmark against which the First Minister’s political integrity was to be measured. And he has fallen short.

The signs were there at last year’s elections, when several SNP candidates – notably Alasdair Allan, standing for the Western Isles – courted support in their constituencies by announcing that, irrespective of the party’s energy policy, they would oppose local wind farms which were unpopular with the voters. The leadership said nothing; winning seats was more important than principles.

To embrace a cause that is vital to the national interest, then abandon bits of it because they risk losing votes is nothing new in politics. It is called hypocrisy, and it is the kind of thing that erodes yet further the reputations of those who are meant to run the affairs of state. In the case of the Lewis wind farm, you can add the Pontius Pilate charge. Jim Mather, the Energy Minister, claims that the SNP-led Executive had no alternative – that, even if they had wanted to construct the 181 turbines on Lewis, they would not have been allowed to do so.

European legislation, he said, means that the development was incompatible with the Special Protection Area which safeguards wildlife and the easily damaged peatlands of the island.

He knows – we all know – that that is not the main reason for turning this scheme down. European law is tight, but not that tight. National governments who have signed up to the EU’s environmental schemes must respect the “integrity” of a designated site, but there are exceptions. The first and most relevant for the SNP is: “If they [national governments] are satisfied that, there being no alternative solutions, the plan or project must be carried out for imperative reasons of overriding public interest . . . the competent authority may agree to the plan or project, notwithstanding a negative

assessment of the implications for the site.”

Those reasons must relate to “human health, public safety or beneficial consequences of primary importance to the environment, or . . . other reasons which in the opinion of the European Commission are imperative reasons of overriding public interest”. It is hard to imagine a public interest reason more overriding than the saving of the planet. If the SNP were serious about green energy and cutting carbon emissions, they would have taken to the airwaves to argue with passion and conviction that finding new ways of producing carbon-free energy were even more important than damaging a skyline, uprooting peatlands or saving the lives of the occasional golden eagle.

Mr Salmond, whose eloquence is frequently deployed in arguing the case for independence, has, on this far more serious question, been silent. He has failed to raise the case in Europe, failed, most notably to show courage and principle on a world stage in the face of opposition at home.

He has failed a crucial test of leadership. Worse, he has failed the test of character.