SCOTLAND’S Tories were accused of having nothing positive to offer the country today as they published their manifesto ahead of May’s Holyrood elections.

Scottish Conservative leader Douglas Ross said that creating jobs would be his party’s priority but warned that the country’s efforts to recover from the coronavirus pandemic would be “crippled” if the SNP continues to focus on independence.

Plans unveiled by Mr Ross include revising Scotland’s income tax threshold, which would increase the take-home pay of 1.1 million of the country’s richest residents. 

Mr Ross said: “We cannot trust the SNP to deliver our recovery.

“We cannot rebuild Scotland while we are crippled by the threat of an independence referendum. So we need to take that threat off the table.”

But his party has been criticised for its own focus on independence: the manifesto refers to independence and a referendum more than 40 times, while the NHS is mentioned on just 26 occasions. 

Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar accused Mr Ross’s party of “deliberately talking up division for their own political purposes.

“The Tory government’s record in power is one of shame —  they are responsible for so many of the structural inequalities that we faced pre-Covid and that have since been exacerbated by the pandemic,” he said. 

“We cannot trust the Tories to deliver a national recovery that works for everyone.”

His accusation came as doctors’ representatives warned that politicians may be “raising unrealistic public expectations” about the amount of work the NHS in Scotland can do after the coronavirus pandemic. 

The British Medical Association Scotland said there were concerns about the mental and physical toll taken on existing NHS staff, saying political rhetoric needs to be followed by increases in “capacity and workforce.”