Once upon a time, Susan Taylor (29) and Lynn Cowan (28) were partners and they lived in Scotland. 

And, quite often, a tiny tot would come to stay with them (but we cannot be told his name, for legal reasons).  And, sometimes, the social workers would also come round.  And one day, when they came round, they found that the methadone was stored securely out of reach of the tiny tot.  Which was good, children, wasn't it? 

Except that, sometimes, Susan Taylor would put the tot's dummy in the cup she used to measure out her methadone, and run it round, so that the tot's dummy was coated in methadone. 

And one day, the tot seemed to stop breathing, and his lips went blue and his face went grey, and he vomitted, and on the way to the hospital he seemed to have fits.  And Lynn Cowan wouldn't let on that the tot had been fed methadone.  So she was sent to prison for 10 months. 

As for Susan Taylor, she was sent to prison for 3 years - but she couldn't start her sentence immediately because she was already serving 26 months for bashing up and robbing an old lady of 66.   

A recent report from the Office of National Statistics says that all the government's expensive schemes to give children from poor homes a better start in life have been ineffective and waste of money.  Well, bless my soul.  Who ever would have thought it?      

If we had repealed the Act of Union (1707), of course, this particular squalid episode would no longer have been a burden on English taxpayers. The Scots would have had to pay for it all themselves.  As it is, the partnership of Taylor and Cowan seems to be a public sector job creation scheme.