Outrage as SNP minister insults Named Person critics
Bitterness, hatred, and even Project Fear. As the Brexit debate mirrors the ugliness of 2014’s independence referendum, a leading writer asks...
A SENIOR Nationalist minister has sparked outrage after claiming opponents of the SNP’s state guardian scheme are putting children’s lives at risk.
Humza Yousaf, the SNP’s Europe Minister, said critics were spreading ‘misconceptions’ which could lead to the death of some vulnerable youngsters.
The extraordinary intervention comes as pressure mounts for the scheme to be halted amid growing objection, including a scathing attack from former SNP deputy leader Jim Sillars who condemned it as ‘intrusive’.
Mr Yousaf said the Named Person scheme would help protect children and insisted some who spoke against it were making ‘vacuous’ comments which could lead to children losing their lives.
Nicola Sturgeon, who has been accused of spin over the highly contentious policy, faces growing calls for it to be disbanded.
The escalating dispute comes as the mother of a toddler victim of cot death, who was repeatedly neglected despite being under the care of the Named Person scheme, was yesterday jailed for ten months. Clyde Campbell, two, was left without parental care while Amanda Hardie, 30, worked in a nightclub.
Yesterday at Inverness Sheriff Court, former model Hardie, who had admitted neglect, was jailed. She will be freed after serving just five months because of automatic early release.
Commenting on Mr Yousaf’s claims last night, Scottish Tory young people spokesman Elizabeth Smith said: ‘This is a ridiculous remark and shows just how out of touch the SNP has become on this matter.
‘Indeed, because of the insistence that Named Persons are allocated on a universal basis, the opposite argument could be made because too many resources are being diverted away from our most vulnerable children.’
Mr Yousaf spoke on the BBC’s Question Time, filmed in Aberdeen on Thursday.
Host David Dimbleby said parents would be able to select their own Named Person but was then told by panellist Merryn Somerset Webb, editor of Moneyweek magazine, that parents were not able to choose – to which Dimbleby replied: ‘Stranger and stranger.’
His comment was greeted with enthusiastic applause from the audience.
Mr Yousaf insisted that Named Persons would only be able to give advice ‘if the parent needs it’, repeating an argument previously advanced by the First Minister.
But parental participation in the scheme is universal and if a parent were to refuse advice and guidance, this could be noted in the child’s ‘development plan’.
Mr Yousaf said: ‘Some of the hyperbole around this, some of the misconceptions about this, are not only vacuous but frankly put children’s lives in danger – those children who slip through the cracks.’
He said he had foster nephews who were ‘pushed from pillar to post’ and the Named Person scheme would provide a single point of contact in such cases.
In fact, a child will have multiple Named Persons including midwives, health visitors and headteachers throughout their lives.
Mrs Somerset Webb said the rhetoric underpinning the scheme – for example guidance referring to Named Persons as ‘head gardeners’ – was ‘distressing’ for parents.
She said the state would be monitoring children’s lives and could intervene if there was any supposed concern over their welfare.
Mr Yousaf said ‘no one cares what your child is eating or drinking’ or similar details – but Named Persons guidance stipulates that children must be consulted about relatively trivial decisions.
A young woman in the Question Time audience won applause after saying that the scheme would reduce the role of social workers and undermine parental authority.
Scottish Labour leader Kezia Dugdale, also a Question Time panellist, said she supported the scheme ‘in principle’ but believed the SNP had failed to explain it properly. Mr Sillars, who was also on the panel, said the legislation would not survive the ‘line by line’ legislative scrutiny of Westminster.
One of Scotland’s first Named Persons, appointed in a trial run, was recently found guilty of child sex offences. Dayna Dickson-Boath, who taught in Elgin, Moray, was struck off the teaching register for sharing fantasies about abusing youngsters.
An SNP spokesman said: ‘This policy is aimed at protecting children’s well-being, and is about supporting, not diminishing, the role of parents.’
STOP THE SNOOPERS
JUST before the Scottish election last week I spotted a newspaper headline warning that ‘the referendum is threatening family and friendships’. For a minute I thought we were back in 2014 when the referendum, the independence one that is, certainly was destroying relationships of all kinds.
But we had moved on in Scotland, if not very far, to contemplating a second bid for independence and it was this that was top of the agenda as we went to the polls nine days ago.
Now the dust has settled on that result, the Nationalists have less of a mandate than expected to put us through more constitutional angst, and we can go back to being normal citizens rather than voters.
But not for long. In fact, we have 40 days until June 23, which is when we all have to make up our minds again, to vote this time on whether Britain should be in or out of the EU, remain or leave.
That is alarmingly little time to get better acquainted with the arguments, choose a side and then work ourselves into a fervour, but it must be done.
The issue of Europe might not have been particularly high on our list of political priorities in Scotland, paling beside closer to home concerns such as the health service, falling standards in schools, the rising cost of buying a home, or the prospect of punitive taxes. And, of course, independence.
But Europe has become impossible to ignore and not necessarily for the potency of the debate.
The campaign south of the Border has ignited such passions that the Westminster Government could collapse in its wake, the Prime Minister could lose his job and the world as we know it could end.
The US President has been involved, the Pope has had his say – they are both pro-Europe – while the Queen has been claimed by Brexit, although she hasn’t actually expressed an opinion.
The World Bank, the Bank of England, the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development and the International Monetary Fund have lent their voices to the Remain campaign; Michael Caine and Julian Fellowes are apparently anti-Brussels, as is Sir Ian Botham, who described the European Union as a ‘racket’.
WHAT began a few months back as old allies opposing each other on apparently principled grounds – remember Michael Gove’s agonising over betraying David Cameron – has descended into gutter politics.
The rhetoric has become increasingly rancorous and the divisions are growing too deep to mend. Former Labour home secretary Alan Johnson called Brexit supporters ‘unbalanced’. Former Tory cabinet minister Iain Duncan Smith said Johnson was ‘ridiculous’.
Cameron himself has warned of European disintegration and possibly war if we pull out of the EU. Worse, Boris Johnson, who said Cameron was ‘demented’, could end up Prime Minister.
Property values will plummet, 400 footballers will lose the right to play in the UK, and custody battles like Madonna’s and Guy Ritchie’s could be more commonplace if we leave. If we remain, the poor will suffer and there will be an explosion in inequality.
With all the hyperbole it’s impossible to find a rational reason to stay or to get out.
The anger and bitterness have even spilled out into the salons, with Gove’s loyal wife, Sarah Vine, a columnist with this newspaper, reportedly having a bust-up at a 50th birthday party with her pal Samantha Cameron.
One London columnist asked ‘why do the Remainers hate the Outers so much more than we Outers dislike them?’
This is all horribly familiar to Scots, who are barely recovering from the divisiveness of September 2014. Our wounds are yet to heal properly and, as last week’s election and the General Election a year ago showed, the country is still pretty much split between the Yes and No camps of the independence campaign.
What the rest of Britain seems to be going through is a similar polarisation of fundamental proportions, a messy divorce which brings out the bad in both partners.
The only discernible difference between the EU referendum and our one of 2014 is the former’s lack, so far, of sabotage, intimidation at public meetings, egg throwing and cyberbullying.
No BBC reporters have been hounded out of London over the EU, as Nick Robinson was (almost) hounded out of Glasgow. And no student volunteers have been chased along streets by placard-waving zealots.
The Scottish Nationalists still have a monopoly on underhand tactics. But the ugliness is being ratcheted up over the EU referendum and ordinary Scots have seen enough of that for one lifetime.
Broadly pro-Europe, we are happier than the English to accept the status quo.
We are perhaps less perturbed by the dire warnings of unchecked immigration because Scotland has seen few of the pitfalls of the open borders policy; if anything, we need more immigrants.
There is no appetite for a fight on the scale enveloping the south. The Scottish identity crisis centres far more on our place in the UK – that goes to the heart of our psyche and pulls emotional strings that European membership can’t reach.
The Scottish Secretary David Mundell was right when he said the SNP’s inability to rule out a re-run of the independence
referendum was a bigger cause of uncertainty for Scotland than the EU.
NEARLY 85 per cent of Scots voted in the independence referendum; last week in the Holyrood poll it was just 55.6 per cent, and it is tipped to be even lower on June 23.
Out on the doorstep, canvassers say they are being met with an ‘oh no, not again’ reaction. We have over-exercised our electoral muscle and succumbed to democratic fatigue.
As the pro-EU group Scotland Stronger in Europe set out its stall in Edinburgh on Tuesday, there was a collective sigh of boredom as we got a taste of the hysteria that has characterised the campaign in England. There will be higher food prices, more expensive flights, soaring mobile phone charges and the end of London as a financial centre would be among the consequences if we cut our ties with Brussels, said campaigner Jayne-Anne Gadhia.
But we are up to here with the tub-thumpers of whatever persuasion in whatever referendum and long for a quiet life where our views are our own.
Having all too recently survived one painful process of national introspection – just – could Scotland not be forgiven a bout of complacency over Europe?
It seems not. The contest is too close to call nationwide and Cameron knows he could lose. Our country needs us and we cannot turn our backs on the ballot boxes next month.
There is said to be a large proportion of undecideds in the race, maybe as many as 20 per cent nationally.
But here, an estimated 76 per cent are in favour of remaining in the EU, according to the most recent poll by Survation. Our vote is potentially game-changing.
Scots are like latecomers to a party, bemused by the antics of those who’ve been there from the beginning, but forced to enter into the spirit of the occasion nonetheless.
John Edward of Scotland Stronger in Europe said: ‘The Scottish turnout and the Scottish vote show every sign of being influential, if not crucial, for the overall turnout in the United Kingdom, so every Scot will know their vote is making a substantial difference.’
Cameron is depending on Scottish backing at Westminster too. With his own party so divided, he needs the weight of all the opposition MPs, including the 54 who still have the SNP whip.
AS the Nationalists have long insisted that an exit from Europe would be contrary to Scottish interests and therefore a ‘trigger’ for a second independence referendum, they should have no ideological problem siding with the Prime Minister in the Commons.
But they are in no mood to play a cheerleading role for Cameron. Nicola Sturgeon has ruled out sharing a platform with other pro-Europe parties or joining an ‘umbrella campaign’, even if the vote is on a knife edge.
Instead, she said she and Cameron would ‘maximise support’ for staying in Europe by making separate appeals to those voters most likely to listen to them.
It’s easy to see why she is putting party interests first. In the Scottish election it was the threat of a repeat independence referendum that produced a surprise swing to the Tories and thus robbed the SNP of their parliamentary majority.
If she agreed to a double act with her political foes it is Ruth Davidson she would be teaming up with, and that would never do.
After Davidson’s electoral success, in which she managed to overturn a generationlong losing streak and secure 31 seats for her party, she is now Sturgeon’s chief opponent in the parliament.
And Cameron has wasted no time in deploying the irrepressible saviour of the Scottish Conservatives as his weapon north of the Border.
The First Minister was happier when the Tories were toxic and she will be working hard to portray them as such.
Even on Europe, where they agree, she is already trying to open up a seam of dissent.
The UK approach needed to ‘recast itself away from a Project Fear type campaign to one that is about optimism and positivity and hope for the future’, she said, citing as an example… you guessed it, the independence referendum!
A cynic might argue that the Nationalists are secretly hoping for Brexit as that would give them a genuine grievance against London on which to base a fresh drive for secession.
But Sturgeon has promised to create excitement over Europe to encourage a high turnout. In the end, she might not need to.
While there is unlikely to be a surge of EU referendum frenzy here in the coming weeks, Scots will hopefully overcome their election weariness and traipse back to the polling stations again.
And despite Sturgeon’s attempts to accentuate the positive, it is Cameron’s doom mongering that could awaken voters from their torpor.
There may well be echoes of the Project Fear that made unionists look negative, almost undermined Better Together and helped boost support for the more ‘joyful’ separatists to dangerous levels 20 months ago.
But the small ‘c’ conservative majority will recall that much of Project Fear’s predictions in 2014 proved to be accurate. A breakaway Scotland would now have a £12billion black hole thanks in part to the dramatic drop in oil prices.
The Nationalists still haven’t outlined plans for an alternative currency to the pound, and they still can’t say how much they would have to raise taxes to meet the massive shortfall in the public purse post-separation.
Businesses cautioned then that there would be an exodus following a Yes victory and most now advise that we are better staying in Europe, for all its flaws.
Amid the noise of competing extremes it is the quiet moderates who will prevail. Scotland nearly tore itself apart over independence but pulled back from the brink. It is looking to the rest of the UK to do the same over Europe.
Then, if it is not too much to ask, governments can get on with governing and voters, having done their duty once more, can get on with their lives.