Last word

The situation Ian Lewis describes (Letters, 8 July) concerning the raising of a well-being concern about a child already exists with regard to the caring professions, the way they link with case 
conferences and their relationship with the children’s hearing system.

My understanding is that the named persons will provide a co-ordinating role and in that sense their role will initially be reactive to concerns raised.

I have said before in these columns that the constant use of the term “guardian” gives a false perspective of the power the named persons will have. I’ve also said that the government needs to do more to allay the fears that exist.

Speaking personally, if someone had raised a concern about one of my children, I would want to be informed about it.

It is my personal view that these fears are significantly exacerbated by ludicrous comments such as those made by Stan Hogarth about Soviet-style police states, The Scotsman being renamed as Scotia Pravda, Gaelic being imposed as the national language and references to the First Minister as the Dear Leader.

In the circumstances, I would have thought describing Mr Hogarth as intemperate was mild.

Mr Hogarth says he “won’t resort to low-level rhetoric” and then proceeds to call me a fool. For my part, I’m happy to let the readers of the letters columns read our contributions and judge which one of us is the fool, but to be called narrow-minded by Stan Hogarth is a supreme irony I’m struggling to recover from.

Douglas Turner

Derby Street

Edinburgh