ID card dangers

THE Nationalists like to present themselves as free-thinking radicals at the forefront of attempts to end old, outmoded politics.

How marvellous would it be, then, if they were to stand on their own two feet in today’s debate on widening access to NHS records?

The taxman wants to look at the files and so do a slew of faceless quangos and agencies. There is a very real fear that the SNP – desperate to get its hands on Scottish taxpayers’ cash – will create a database open to abuse and susceptible to leaks.

And critics say such a sensitive database will not be far from an ID card, introduced by stealth.

There are already warnings that the plan may be illegal under data protection laws, but still it has taken a motion by Scottish Liberal Democrat leader Willie Rennie – who writes persuasively on the issue elsewhere in this paper – to have the issue properly aired.

Alex Salmond, when he was First Minister, famously declared the SNP realised it did not have a monopoly of wisdom.

There have been signs – not least in the reworking of John Swinney’s bungled property tax – that Nicola Sturgeon actually accepts her party’s frailties.

Will she and her MSPs listen to today’s debate and vote according to the facts, not just the party line?