I think it’s important that our young people understand the mechanisms that govern our lives, that they can see the people that lead the key parties in parliament and that they can understand how different parts of the UK govern themselves.  I was delighted therefore to randomly discover that the Children’s BBC (CBBC) provides a guide to the Scottish Parliament … at least I would’ve been delighted if it wasn’t so WRONG!

I can’t say that CBBC is one of my usual sources of information, however, as I googled something and this popped up I thought I’d have a look.  One of the pages in question (see below) features all the current leaders of the main political parties in Scotland.

I took a screen-shot for posterity’s sake.  My! hasn’t Salmond lost weight …

"Scottish National Party John Swinney"

Incredible as it may seem, CBBC has managed to reinstate a number of previous leaders to their positions of power … anyone remember these particular gems?

"Leader of the Labour MSP's, Jack McConnell"

"Scottish Liberal Democrat Leader, Jim Wallace"

Does the BBC know something we don’t about the current leadership contests in the Labour and Liberal parties?

"Scottish Conservative Leader, David McLetchie"

Is it just me, or does McLetchie look like he’s on trial …

"Scottish Socialist Party Leader, Tommy Sheridan"

A forthcoming story for Newsround perhaps:

The SSP were shocked by Tommy’s unexpected return to the party, never-mind his rapid ascent to retake his former position before winning a landslide victory in Glenrothes in order to return to Holyrood … perhaps he’ll replace the new slimmed down Salmond as First Minister too …

… then again, maybe not.

All the pics are from the CBBC Newsround site, as are the associated picture captions.  What comes below is current content of the Newsround site and can be found under the Guides section for the Scottish Parliament.

Although the content is broadly accurate, there are few errors which should really be cleared up.  Under the heading What is the Scottish Parliament? they say:

… It’s part of a process called devolution, which means people in different areas of the UK can make decisions for their own areas, rather than having decisions made by politicians hundreds of miles away in London.

Specifically what it [devolution] means is that Scotland and Wales can make decisions in limited areas of governance, whilst everyone in England who lives more than 199 miles away from London still have decisions made for them by Westminster.  The asymmetrical devolution to which I have referred to in previous posts.

Under the heading What Does the Parliament Do? the BBC makes a few more errors:

The parliament makes sure the Scottish Executive makes fair laws. The Executive is made up of MSPs from the party or parties who have won the most seats in parliament.

They actually decide the laws on schools, hospitals, the police, transport, sport, the environment and Gaelic (the Scottish language).

They can choose how much money to give them and how they’re run.

First-up is the reference to the Scottish Executive, it’s not, it’s a Government … says so on their headed paper. 

Secondly, Gaelic is not the Scottish Language, it is one Language spoken in fairly specific geographical locations, although I’ll allow that it is the most widely recognised native language.  However, Scots is also a language spoken widely across the country, so much so in fact that I would contest that most people who speak Scots do so without realising it and use it as readily and interspersed easily with the English language, which is of course the most common language.

The CBBC continues to refer to the Government as an Executive, although acknowledges that one is much the same as another … I’d have been surprised though if this section, headed All about the First Minister,was wildly inaccurate given that Salmond only came to power a year ago.  It’s an event you’d have been hard pressed to miss … even if you are a researcher for the BBC.

The most glaring error comes from the most basic question MPs and MSPs: The Difference.  See if you can spot it:

An MSP is a Member of the Scottish Parliament.

But there are also 72 MPs (Members of Parliament) who represent Scotland in the House of Commons at Westminster.

They represent their constituencies on issues that the Scottish Parliament cannot make law on, like Defence, Foreign Affairs, National Security and Employment.

Can you see it … I’ll give you a moment

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That’s right!  There are only 59 Scottish MP’s not 72.  Least not since 2005 anyway, and why not point out that this is out of a total of 646 MP’s.

Honestly, what’s the point.  Why try and get young people interested in politics if you’re not going to provide them with accurate information in context … I always thought that CBBC was aimed at young people, not retarded people, you can give them more information without their collective heads exploding …