‘MINISTER. I have the commence­ment order for the Hate Crime Act, ready for your signature.”

“Very good. What day is it due to come into force?”

“April 1.”

It’s around this point in the ­conversation that the Cabinet Secretary’s political ­antennae ought to have begun vibrating ­energetically. Urgent demands for officials to select literally any other day on the ­calendar should have begun forming on their lips.

But objection, it seems, there came none – and the Scottish Government is now ­committed to bringing this controversial set of proposals into force on April Fool’s Day.

Paranoid people sometimes suggest the SNP have wholly captured the civil ­service. This PR coup alone suggests dissident ­forces with a sense of humour are still alive and at work in the Scottish Government’s justice division.

I’m not a highly remunerated communications professional – I’m no master of spin – but you might think the silly optics of this decision would have occurred to one or two of the legion of SPADs how clustered around the Scottish cabinet.

But apparently not.

When someone presents you with a tempting opportunity to make a fool of yourself, in general, it’s the wiser course to decline to step into the proffered cowpat. But here we are, up to our ankles in it.

All of which is rather irritating – as it has yet again emboldened the many folk in Scottish political life who are having a rare old time peddling fiction about what’s actually in the Hate Crime Act and painting dystopian pictures about the new and terrifying world of repression it will create.

Telling inflammatory lies about this ­legislation is back in fashion. And what’s ­curious is it is generally critics of these ­proposals who are most determined to ­pretend the Act says things it doesn’t say and criminalises behaviour it doesn’t ­criminalise.

Act anxiety

There are – I think reasonable – anxieties that the legislation could be weaponised by frivolous complaints about........

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