Fiona Duff: Boxing clever is not how they do things at Holyrood

Nicola Sturgeon's government is keen to give all new parents a helping hand - whether they need it or not. Picture: John Devlin

However, more and more it feels as though they just want to run every aspect of our lives. The idiotic “named person” scheme that those bods in Holyrood seem so keen on has faltered before it even started because it contravenes some law set down by the European Court of Human Rights. What a bunch of numpties; to have debated this ridiculous piece of legislation without actually finding out if it is actually legal.

This week I read that the latest wheeze in interfering with our lives is to give every new mother in Scotland a “baby box”. This initiative is going to cost around a whopping £7 million a year and doesn’t bother to take into account whether the parent actually needs any help.

I know that there are those for whom the cost of nappies makes a huge dent in their weekly budget, but there are also those for whom there is no need to be given a box of goodies which once emptied can be used as a crib. They will have a nursery kitted out with all the latest paraphernalia for nippers and the Government’s box will doubtless be chucked into their log-burning stove. What is the point of a nanny state for residents who are forking out to pay for such a person in the first place?

Daniel Sloss will provide an antidote to all the doom and gloom

The same day that I read about this there was another story about how some people have to wait for up to eight hours in A&E (or whatever it is called these days) before being seen. How many more nurses and doctors could be employed for the cost of the baby box scheme?

The Government needs to stop making grand sweeping gestures which they have read works in other countries and start just trying to sort out the problems we have here at home. The majority of people don’t need some sort of tsar telling them how to run their lives, and those who do should be assisted in every way possible.

Frankly, if anybody turned up on my doorstep telling me how to bring up my children they would probably leave wishing that they hadn’t bothered.

Funny bones are in dire need of a proper work-out

'Sir' Philip Green has done hee haw since priomising to sort the vast hole in the BHS pension fund. Picture: Ian West/PA Wire

There’s an awful lot of doom and gloom around right now, what with cold weather, economic uncertainty and that lovely long-jumping Greg being ousted from Strictly. So if there’s ever a time we need a laugh it’s at this precise moment.

However, I am going to wait until next Thursday which is when I shall tootle down to the Brunton Theatre in Musselburgh for a night of comedy with Daniel Sloss and Kai Humphries who I have been told are two of the funniest young men around.

Indeed, it’s hard to believe that Mr Sloss is only 25 as he seems to have been performing for decades – I suppose that’s what happens when you start at 16. He’s just been on a European tour which included a date in Transylvania, and if he can’t get some material out of that I’ll have to eat my hat.

As for Kai, well just a couple of weeks ago he won the Radio Forth comedy award at their annual ceremony. I’ll just have to believe what I am told as I wasn’t invited to the event. However, after next week I shall be able to report as to whether or not he is a deserved winner, but I am sure that I will leave the theatre a happier person.

Green makes me see red!

So in June that slimey businessman “Sir” Philip Green told the House of Commons that when it came to the vast hole in the BHS pension fund that he would “sort it”.

Apart from sounding like someone doing a Dennis Waterman impersonation he has apparently done hee haw about sorting anything as he’s been too busy lounging around on his super yacht with Kate Moss and other such people. So yes, I do think that his assets should be seized, various parts of his anatomy squeezed and that knighthood chucked in the bin.

I believe his wife, who lives a tax-free life in Monaco, doesn’t take kindly to people slagging off her other half – so Tina do feel free to give me a buzz. I’m not the one married to a money-grabbing piece of scum so I guess I’ll have the upper hand whatever you’d like to say.

I’m not missing the big reveal

I AM rather enjoying The Missing although at times (in fact most of the time) I really am not sure what is going on in this series. If it wasn’t for Keeley Hawes’ hairstyle I am not sure if I would know whether it is present day or two years ago.

There are teenage girls popping up that all look the same and frankly I cannot believe that the French detective would forgo possible life-saving treatment for a brain tumour to track down a missing person. Still, only a couple more episodes to go and I live in hope that it all makes sense in the end.