By Steve Bargeton, political editor

SCOTTISH TORY leader Annabel Goldie yesterday warned that there should be no “knee-jerk reaction” to the tragic death of Dundee toddler Brandon Muir.

Addressing delegates at the annual conference of the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities in St Andrews, she said it would take a generation or longer to “tackle our broken society.”

Ms Goldie said there are more potential tragedies just waiting to happen.

Brandon Muir was just 23 months old when the boyfriend of his drug- addicted mother killed him.

Robert Cunningham (23) was this week found guilty of the unlawful killing of the little boy at the High Court in Glasgow.

Former Fife chief constable Peter Wilson is to chair an independent review of child protection services in Dundee, but the case has again raised the question of children across Scotland at risk from adults living so-called “chaotic lifestyles.”

No one knows how many children are living with drug-dependent adults, but Glasgow University has estimated that between 40,000 and 50,000 children live with at least one drug-addicted parent.

Last year Ms Goldie highlighted the urgent need to address the “parenting void” in Scotland and yesterday returned to the subject in her address in St Andrews.

She said, “Let me touch upon something which demonstrates why we have no option but to work together. The tragic case of Brandon Muir. A wee boy, just 23 months old, whose needless death has been another wake-up call to us all.

“Last May, I spoke about the parenting void in Scotland—the third generation of adults with no parenting skills; mums and dads with chaotic lifestyles; drug addiction, poverty, despair.

“I warned that too many children in Scotland were consigned to lives of misery and pain.

“And I admitted that I did not have all the answers, but that we needed to start asking the tough questions.

“When cases such as this in Dundee arise, it would be all to easy to rush to instant judgment—to blame the social workers, the neighbours, the system. But we must resist such a knee-jerk reaction. There are no easy answers.

“It will take a generation or longer to really tackle our broken society. But we cannot hide from the awful truth any more.

“We must face up to the facts. Sadly there are more potential tragedies, just like Brandon Muir, waiting to happen.”

Ms Goldie said that just as Scotland has found a new political will to tackle the scourge of drugs abuse, we must now face up to the needs of Scotland’s vulnerable children.

“We now need to look ourselves in the face and admit that we, all of us—and we are Scotland’s society— have failed and are failing too many children in Scotland,” she said.

“This is not a party political issue, it is about the very fabric of the society we choose to weave, an issue that must unite us all. I shall do all I can to nurture that discussion and encourage that unity of purpose.”

Speaking at the same conference, Scottish Liberal Democrat leader Tavish Scott called on government agencies and local government to pull together.

Mr Scott said, “Forty thousand children across Scotland live with a drug abuser. They are all at risk.

“Our public agencies must all pull together to stop this kind of tragedy happening again.

“Where the mother is a heroin addict and a part-time prostitute, with the money going not on a child’s bed but feeding her habit, the situation is by any objective assessment obscene.”