The right believe the pendulum of compassion needs to swing the other way, to protect “our own”.  But not even “our own” includes everyone. Consider the Telegraph columnist Sherelle Jacobs, with her assertion that “good people” are under threat from a dangerous and insidious “underclass”. She and her colleagues tell us that the “straight, white and male” are endangered, even that Brexiters are victims, for Heaven’s sake. So far, so much gaslighting.

And so that’s why Kemi Badenoch’s call this week to disapply human rights for all immigration cases goes with the grain. What she and her supporters call “common sense” boils down to a rejection of decades of laws to protect people from abuse and exploitation, and to ensure they have dignity, that their rights are respected.

But almost everyone’s a victim now. Take the justly-under-fire Alexander Armstrong, pilloried for claiming to be “extremely poor” because of the Government’s taxing private school fees. His own expensive education should have steered him away from such a stupid comment, and such a revealing failure to read the room. While 700,000 homes in Scotland are now considered not fit for habitation, over a million are living in poverty, and more than one in four parents admit they struggle to provide enough food for their children, I can only conclude that Horse and Hound doesn’t cover the cost of living crisis or food banks in its privileged pages.

And treating people with respect is about doing what you can. Contrast Armstrong with Michael Sheen, currently rescuing 900 people from £1m of debt by deft use of his own money. And all that charity fundraising by people puffing their way round marathons and half-marathons, every food bank donation, every workplace bake sale, bears witness to the truth that we are one society and should be judged by how we treat our weakest members.

Rights and respect matter. How fantastic is it that 750 Scottish schools have achieved the Silver or Gold Unicef Rights Respecting School award! And how good to be reminded that our children and young people – and those educating them – are daily demonstrating the importance of the rights enshrined in the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child. We are not all victims, and there are plenty who are being daily denied their rights.

Yes, R-E-S-P-E-C-T is the word, and always was, even before Grease was.

Dr Michael Gregson is the Labour Councillor for Inverness Central

Agenda is a column for outside contributors. Contact: agenda@theherald.co.uk