Reading Kenny MacAskill, “the former justice secretary who pushed through the single force plan”, criticise the Scottish Police Authority (SPA) is like listening to Tony Blair ask what idiot took us into the Iraq War (Is Scottish policing fit for purpose?, State of the nation, April 16). General secretary of the Scottish Police Federation Calum Steele observing that the SPA had “not been a success” – despite being “arguably more effective” than the bodies it superceded – made just as much sense.
Elsewhere in your Easter weekend newspaper, collapse in the Christian church was lamented. For me, this is where the true problem lies with our police. They have for far too long enjoyed no such challenge to their divine status; indeed, such status is routinely reaffirmed within the churches of Holyrood, the media, our courts etc. That is why Mr Steele feels able to complain on officers’ behalf of the “organisational bull***t” of policing, and of the “unnecessarily adversarial approach” adopted by a watchdog when responding to complaints citing his members.
Is Scottish policing fit for purpose? In my view, the question should be: are Scottish police still relevant? From the viewpoint of those who have spent more time in courts than Andy Murray, so many industries have designed out at source much potential for crime and often have become self-policing, and so much public law and order has been privatised and devolved to corporate security firms, with side-street superheroes snatching cheap kudos wherever they can, police are now little more than the Postman Pats of the Procurator Fiscal.
And, from the standpoint of a bemused (burgled) public, it takes nothing short of a catclysm to persuade police to turn the ignition keys in their pandas.
Archie Beaton
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