Writing in the Daily Mail, columnist Euan McColm strongly criticises Scottish First Minister John Swinney's proposed legislation to ban conversion practices, arguing that if passed it would be "weaponised against parents". The piece frames the plan as the latest example of what McColm characterises as the SNP's long-standing tendency, over two decades in power, to intervene in citizens' private and family lives.

To support his argument, McColm opens with Ronald Reagan's line that the most terrifying words are "I'm from the government and I'm here to help", and points to earlier controversial SNP measures such as the Named Person scheme and the Offensive Behaviour at Football Act as evidence of the government's instinct to insert itself into how people speak and raise their children. The article is an opinion column rather than a news report, and the version supplied cuts off before setting out the detail of the conversion practices proposals themselves.