Hit legislation?

I see that smacking children looks set to be banned by Holyrood. That is caring. Should killing them before they are born be banned as well?

JOHN KELLY

Roxburgh Street, Kelso

The smacking ban will pass because the government-funded charities have demanded it and the politicians have decreed it. No manifesto promises, no chance to use one’s vote against it, no opposition from the Conservative Party. The majority of the electorate that opposes it is ignored at best, demonised at worst.

That’s Scottish politics in action: a one way street in the so-called progressive direction.

RICHARD LUCAS

Leader of the Scottish

Family Party Bath Street, Glasgow

The political scene these days seems to be filled with people who think that anything, as long as it differs from what exists now, will make the world a better place.

UK? No. Let’s break it up into its ancient parts.

Genders? Old hat. If you want to be another gender, despite your chromosomes clearly indicating what you are, go under the surgeon’s knife.

Freedom? Tosh. Let’s try to recreate Communist Russia, as Mr Corbyn hopes. As Mr Gorbachev asked, “Why are they trying to recreate the Soviet Union in Europe?”

Protecting our children? Definitely not something for parents to do. Let the state do it,

with Named Persons, because nanny knows best.

Now, we have an attempt to stop parents from chastising their children – you know, the ones they brought into this world? Again, Nanny knows best, because, if you smack little Johnnie to stop him running across the road and getting killed, you are “assaulting him”.

Perhaps the holier-thanthous who know so much better than those of us who have children should look at the world we live in right now. It is filled with violence, because young people know no bounds. They have never learned right from wrong. It is not a matter of assaulting children, so much as saying, “No. You must NOT do that.”

Children are not rational adults and they need to know what they may and, more importantly, may NOT do. A light smack is discipline and everyone of my generation experienced it, usually very rarely. The lesson, however, was learned and the levels of assault 50 years ago will prove that to be the case.

This well-meant, but ill thought-out policy must be stopped, because the road to Hell is littered with good intentions.

ANDREW HN GRAY

Craiglea Drive, Edinburgh