Ploughing on with a bad law is a betrayal
SO the Named Persons scheme is still going ahead. This is what the SNP would like you to know, after the devastating decision handed down by the Supreme Court this week in which five top judges ruled it unlawful.
I’ll say one thing for the Scottish Government, it sure knows how to spin bad news.
There is a bullishness about the SNP’s obsession with Named Persons that has always seemed unsettling. A determination that – despite the crowd of voices questioning its validity and lawfulness, never mind its ethics – it would still be enshrined in law.
The Law Society of Scotland, the Scottish Parent Teacher Council, the Catholic Church, the Church of Scotland, all have voiced their concerns over the implementation of a state snooper scheme across Scotland.
Then there is the grassroots movement that has sprung up, centred on the organisation No to Named Persons (NO2NP) and spearheaded by a 61year-old mother of two appalled at the idea of such an invasive policy.
The SNP has expended an enormous amount of energy on the project, with the normally passionless John Swinney seemingly wedded to its implementation.
The language used by the Supreme Court this week, meanwhile, is intriguing.
‘The first thing that a totalitarian regime tries to do is get at the children, to distance them from the subversive, varied influences of their families and indoctrinate them in their rulers’ views of the world,’ the judgment read.
This is true and it has always been thus. And while it should be pointed out that it was not specifically referring to the Scottish Government, the mere use of such austere, Orwellian words by an institution such as the Supreme Court is worthy of note.
Part of what has been so difficult to understand from the start about the SNP’s insistence on such clearly bad legislation is that it ignores evidence from elsewhere that such schemes do not succeed. A similar pilot scheme on the Isle of Man caused chaos for the island’s social work department as it foundered under an avalanche of work created by nervous Named Persons unclear on the rules and reporting every tiny issue.
The scheme was wisely abandoned after some bright spark realised that if you are looking for a needle in a haystack, making the haystack bigger will compound – not solve – the issue.
Then there are the children themselves, such as poor Liam Fee, murdered by his mother Rachel Trelfa and her civil partner Nyomi Fee in Fife, where an early version of the initiative was operating.
That Mr Swinney initially argued the scheme did not fail little Liam, before later conceding that every child in Fife did indeed have a ‘contact point’ under a version of the scheme, underlines not only its ineffectiveness but once again, the Government’s desperate desire to spin reality.
Meanwhile, the fact that the ruling is based on the European Convention on Human Rights – one of the SNP’s favourite things about its beloved Europe – adds an amusing side note.
Laughably, the SNP is still trying to claim the Supreme Court’s judgment as a victory. In the coming weeks we will no doubt hear a lot about how the Government has accepted the words of the Court and will make the necessary amendments. But this will not get to the heart of the underlying issues that have concerned many Scots for so long.
If the SNP chooses to persist with this policy, it will reveal something deeply unsettling about the style of government the party has chosen to pursue in a country that has in the past prided itself on being liberated, open and democratic.
Named Persons should have been abandoned long ago. The Scottish Government’s bullish insistence on implementing it is a betrayal of the people of Scotland. IN 1992, the year of Black Wednesday, the Squidgygate tapes and the introduction of the new ten pence piece, Hillary Clinton was publicly and humiliatingly lambasted for daring to admit that after her husband was elected Governor of Arkansas she chose to pursue her career rather than ‘stay home and bake cookies’. This week, Mrs Clinton became the Democratic Party’s nominee for President of the United States. How much the world has changed – and how far women have come. LET joy be unconfined. Scientists have revealed a sharp drop in the number of midges blighting BBQs and bothering campers this summer in the Scottish countryside. The fact there has also been no summer weather to speak of for the past six weeks must surely be sheer coincidence.