Best laid plans
Life chances are often shaped even before we are born By Dr Jonathan Sher
Te wellbeing and life chances of Holyrood’s Baby Kirsty were also shaped in large measure by key individual realities and powerful soci- etal forces in place before her conception. Te pregnancy itself was akin to the parliamentary campaign. It mattered greatly, but was not the alpha and omega of the outcomes. Election night can be likened to childbirth – exciting, tense, sleep-depriving and ultimately either a joy and blessed relief or a source of pain and disappointment. Now, both Kirsty and the fifth cohort of MSPs are in their infancy.
Holyrood magazine will be closely monitoring Kirsty’s development. Holyrood’s staff and expert advisers will analyse how her immediate progress, and her long-term trajectory, are affected by the decisions and actions (or failures to act) by MSPs, the Scottish Government and other key policymakers and practitioners. Holyrood’s emphasis will rightly be on the impacts and implications
▏ ON AN EVENING BUS, I passed a closed shop featuring the sign: ‘Shut happens!’ Of course, some things do just happen. Life continues to offer us surprises (good and bad). However, most significant things don’t ‘just happen’. Tey result from reasonably predictable events, an element of planning and a degree of inertia. Te composition of the fifth Scottish Parliament is a good example.
Is anyone amazed the SNP won the largest number of constituency MSP seats – or that UKIP will not be leading the new Scottish govern- ment? Did the campaign itself entirely determine the outcomes? Were the results merely a matter of luck, fate or unforeseeable events? ‘Of course not’ is the only sensible answer to these questions. Te 2016 Scottish parliamentary election results were largely deter- mined by what was true about the parties, the candidates, the political environment and the Scottish electorate during the pre-election period – that is, in the weeks, months and years before the 2016 campaign officially launched. Enormous amounts of time, energy, thought and resources were invested in preparing for this election well in advance of the actual campaign. Te outcomes largely mirror both the pre- existing conditions and the quality of preparation.
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www.holyrood.com 23 May 2016
of what happens over the next five years. But Kirsty’s future wellbeing – like Scotland’s (and the Scottish Parliament’s) – is profoundly and enduringly influenced by history, that is the legacy of past individual and collective choices, as well as the previous opportunities either embraced or squandered. Kirsty’s godmother (Holyrood editor, Mandy Rhodes) revealed that Kirsty was born into a relatively deprived Scottish family and com- munity. Statistically, this context of inequality already significantly reduces the chances of Kirsty finding that Scotland really is ‘the best place to grow up’. But babies born into deprived families and com- munities can flourish. Conversely, birth defects, child maltreatment, dysfunctional families and other sources of life-scarring, adverse child- hood experiences also affect those born into middle-class families and wealthy communities. Kirsty is illustrative of the 70,000 known conceptions in Scotland last year. Only 54,000 ended in a live birth. And many thousands of
“What will happen (for better or worse) to Kirsty and the next generation of Scots is not inevitable”
PRECONCEPTION
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