Is this the nanny state gone mad?
Every child in Scotland is having a state guardian appointed to them until they are adults and their parents have no say in it.
It means personal details, of hospital appointments, for example, can now be read by a “named person” appointed by the state who can, presumably, intervene and challenge or overrule parents at will.
It is reported that parents in the Highlands are one of several areas already receiving notification of this.
Has that crossed a line into a place where the state can spy on ordinary law-abiding and decent families, who love and care for their children round-the-clock 365-days-year?
What an earth does it have to do with some civil servant as to how people live their lives.
By and large, parents do their best for their kids and always have. It is a matter of trial and error: they are not perfect and most learn from their mistakes. They do not need to fear state intervention taking parental rights and control out of their hands.
We all know that child abuse is a major curse, but there are already publicly-funded agencies whose job it is to identify and protect children at risk. Their track record is questionable after a number of tragedies, but state guardians will not eliminate that.
A typical government scatter-gun approach means that the overwhelmingly number of decent families will be dragged into something which should be aimed at the bad parents. Ordinary decent parents could now face unnecessary state interference.
The policy is not just a daft idea, it is also a potentially dangerous one, as far as individual freedoms are concerned. It should have been ditched long ago. As it is, it could become fully operational in 2016 – unless a protest campaign can stop it in its tracks.