Provosts' pitiful politicking over suicides

Five young males have committed suicide in Dundee during the last fortnight, and the reported political reaction has been frankly pitiful.

Today's Courier lead story is headlined: "City council suicide prevention role praised". It outlines how Lord Provost John Letford had asked Dundee City Council's chief executive to report on what its various departments were doing to prevent such tragedies. The newspaper's report continues:

In response, Mr Dorward has assured the lord provost the council is playing its part in suicide prevention efforts.

He said the council has a well established approach to suicide prevention through arrangements which support the Choose Life national strategy aimed at reducing the number of suicides by 2013.

Mr Dorward said the council works with a wide range of organisations across Dundee with a clear focus on younger people, and has strong links with the police, NHS Tayside and a number of voluntary organisations.

...blah, blah, blah. Thus all eminently predictable, and equally so is the lord provost's response:

I am fully satisfied with the arrangements and initiatives that we have in Dundee and the work done by council officers to try to prevent suicides, work that is ongoing.

So what was the point of all that other than a headline in the paper regarding what amounts to little more than predictable complacency and self-congratulation? What precisely did the lord provost expect council officials to say? "We cocked up, guv?" And might the five suicides in a fortnight suggest to Mr Letford that the council's strategy is perhaps failing?

Of course, that's not to suggest that the council is in any way at fault regarding what has happened, but from an objective standpoint the lord provost's intervention and the council's response tells us next to nothing and smacks of the kind of crude political defensiveness seen in the wake of the Brandon Muir killing.

Meanwhile, deputy lord provost Ian Borthwick has similarly called for "an urgent review into how the city’s key organisations support people considering suicide".

Presumably Mr Borthwick is equally satisfied by the council's response, since it would be rare for any councillor to think otherwise in such circumstances, unless of course there's a stick available to beat political opponents with.