"Despite 50 years of NMD, the general quality of the outcome data is poor. There are no published, randomised, prospective, controlled trials of modern operations."

"Adverse Effects - There are few studies dedicated to looking at these issues and much of the reporting can be criticised for lacking independence and a structured approach."

The above sentences are chilling. They are taken from the 2001 Annual Report of the Neurosurgery for Mental Disorder (NMD) in Dundee and the Report for the Royal College of Psychiatrists - June 2000.

1949 eye socket lobotomy - sticking jaggy instruments through the eye socket and swishing them around the brain - it wasn't rocket science

NMD is Neurosurgery for Mental Disorder. Alternatively, it is the clinical destruction of brain tissue in order to "treat" mental illness.

What the extracts say to FirstFoot is "aye, we know we've been hacking away at loonies brains with scalpels and lasers for half a century and more, but we don't really know what good or harm it does 'cos we've never bothered to find out."

As a reward for this seemingly casual destruction of various parts of the brains of the seriously mentally ill, the Scottish Executive has slipped in a wee bill that proposes that patient consent is no longer needed before the brain scrambling is performed.

So, that's all right then. The medical profession would seem to have no empirical evidence that burning loonies brains has any beneficial effect. "But, carry on guys, and by the way, just do it when you want." " Patient consent, don't be silly. They're only bloody lunatics, they don't have to give consent."

No wonder the public is increasingly suspicious of politicians. If they cannot protect the most vulnerable members of society, it doesn't fill the rest of us with optimism.

FirstFoot proposes an alternative bill. At each election for the Scottish Parliament, the electorate should also have the right to vote for the politician who would benefit most from a wee bit of heid mince.

Anyone who feels that another wee parly e-mail protest campaign is in order, please use the Forum to express your views.