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Keeping you up to date on the progress of the Named Person scheme and the NO2NP campaign.
Twitter’s pro-independence ‘Angry Salmond’ questions Named Person plans
Posted 8 years ago
‘Angry Salmond’, who is best known for his witty political jibes promoting Scottish independence on social media, has raised concerns about the Named Person scheme in a comment piece in The National newspaper.
The man behind the popular Twitter parody account, who is now a regular columnist in The National, said it was ‘suspicious’ that the scheme has been kept “off the public radar and not openly championed as the world-beating miracle cure that its creators doubtlessly consider it to be”.
He stated: “I can’t help but notice that people who know little about Named Person seem entirely in favour of it, while impassioned researchers appear wholly against it.
He added: “I’ll concede that every child being assigned a mandatory government official who employs a “Wellbeing Wheel” to determine if the kid is happy or not certainly isn’t something parents are used to”.
Criticising the speed in which ministers pushed through the proposals, he commented: “Maybe we could have stepped cautiously toward the Named Person scheme rather than diving unwaveringly upon it with no real evidence it will improve anything.”
The columnist warned: “The Named Person idea makes people anxious that, once again, politicians are trying to put out the village fire with a tsunami”.
But Angry Salmond, like many, makes the misguided statement that “the intention of the scheme is to help vulnerable children”, and accepts that this is “a righteous idea”.
Yes, we would all agree that helping vulnerable children is “a righteous idea”. But this scheme is not about child protection as the Government would like us to believe – we wish it was that focused! Instead, it is a universal scheme to monitor the happiness of children, which is highly subjective.
Lesley Scott, the Scottish representative for The Young ME Sufferers (TYMES) Trust in a letter to The National, warned: “This dangerous legislation conflates wellbeing worries with child protection concerns, lowering the trigger for state interference to when a child’s “wellbeing” is adversely affected by any matter arising from any factor”.
She added: “The Scottish Government’s own legal team conceded that every child in Scotland is now viewed as potentially ‘vulnerable’ which holds the considerable implication that all parents are now viewed as potentially neglectful or abusive.”
On the term ‘wellbeing’ she also highlighted that even “the Scottish Government concedes that wellbeing ‘can mean different things ranging from mental health to a wider vision of happiness’.”