HOW on earth can voters trust a single thing the Scottish Tories say when the party cynically plays politics with the education of children?

In its 2016 Holyrood manifesto, they welcomed “the Scottish Government’s recent decision to reintroduce national testing in primary schools”. Now Ruth Davidson makes hay attacking the policy, and tries to kill it off.

The politicisation – the weaponisation – of childhood in Scotland stinks to high heaven and it does not edify the nation. Parents are being tormented by two-faced politicians deploying scare tactics about the education of their children. This is not debate, this is double-dealing of the worst order. Sadly, it has been this way for a long time.

From the issue of a Named Person to advocate for young people who might not have the support they need, through to baby boxes, free tuition fees for university students, the smacking ban and now national testing for primary school pupils, you would be forgiven – if you listened to the opponents of the Scottish Government – for thinking that Nicola Sturgeon is the witch from Hansel and Gretel, ready to eat any child who passes her cottage at Bute House made of social democratic gingerbread.

Whether you support those policies or not – and I personally do support those policies as a voter and a parent – the portrayal of the SNP as a party pushing some Stalinist family-crushing plot is clearly bonkers, and those peddling such nonsense know it’s bonkers. But these days, it is often the crazy not the considerate who win the day.

I spoke to John Swinney, the Education Secretary and Deputy First Minister, last week about a growing opposition to free tuition fees by senior university executives. He made it clear that he saw everything to do with the welfare and education of children on a continuum from baby boxes to free university education.

It was all about “values”, he said – about everyone in society chipping in with taxes to pay for education, and about the state putting out a message that every child, especially the poorest, are cared for, and matter.

Now, of course, you could dismiss Mr Swinney’s comments as political spin – but, I think, he’s telling the truth. Actions speak louder than words, and those policies listed above – the Named Person, baby boxes, the smacking ban, free tuition, national testing – are all saying the same thing to the electorate: we are trying to do the best by your kids. Trying does not mean succeeding, but at least they’re trying.

There’s plenty I disagree with the SNP about, but when it comes to the broad spectrum of policies intended to improve the lives of children, I believe it has the best intentions at heart. And it is trying its best because at the heart of our education system lies a very real problem that the party has to take responsibility for: the struggle to close the attainment gap between children from middle class backgrounds and those from low income homes.

Disadvantaged pupils achieve around half the qualifications that the most affluent achieve – that is a failure, especially for a social democratic party.

The opponents of the SNP, chiefly led by the Tories, picked up the attainment problem as a cudgel, and, rightly, beat the SNP over the head with it. As a result, the SNP, rightly, tried to enact policies to close the attainment gap, including national testing … which the Tories supported, but now don’t support, because, like always, what the Tories care about is power and point-scoring not policies which help the worse off in society.

Let’s concentrate, however, on testing in primary schools – intended, obviously, to help monitor failings in attainment so they can be addressed as early as possible. We’re told that the tests are “traumatising” children – especially those in Primary One.

This is embarrassing nonsense. I know plenty of teachers – I’m married to one – and not a single teacher I’ve spoken to thinks the tests are traumatising. In fact, they laugh when they hear that. They may not like the tests, they may think they’re pointless, that it adds to an already huge workload – but trauma? Come off it, they say.

Children don’t have to prepare for the tests. The tests are done on iPads so it doesn’t feel like some scary pen and paper assessment. The tests are also “adaptive” which means that if the child is having trouble answering questions then it becomes easier, and if the child is doing well the questions become harder. The tests don’t last long - in P1 it’ll take no longer that 30 minutes once a year.

Some teachers feel the “mumsnet brigade” – sharp-elbowed middle-class parents who want to wrap their children in cotton wool – hate the tests because it means their little princes and princesses might not come out with gold stars and A-pluses. What horror – their child might be average.

There are also concerns that it’s these parents who are creating the climate of fear around the tests: tell your child something is scary and the child will find it scary; allow the child to do the test without inculcating fear and they’ll see nothing to fear.

So it is within a climate of hypocrisy, fear and falsehood that we are now to see a debate and vote on national testing in primary one, orchestrated by the Tories, which the SNP, according to political insiders, is likely to lose. The Tories have created enough chaos (their perennial best tactic) to block a policy they supported until it became political convenient not to.

We’re going to see a policy – albeit flawed in many eyes, but well-intentioned and crafted to deal with one of society’s biggest problems – sacrificed on the altar of political conniving. A chance to do something meaningful in schools when it comes to the education of children will likely be snuffed out.

If there’s any kind of fairy tale metaphor here, it isn’t wicked witch Sturgeon coming to gobble up your children, it’s the Pinocchio-nosed Tory party snatching hope away from children who need it, and locking up opportunity in a high tower that only the wealthy have the keys to, not the poorest.