Save our Scottish Police from the SNP, Conservatives and Labour plans

There is a massive campaign brewing here in Scotland and the political parties are lining up on one side or the other.

The SNP put forward proposals to scrap the current eight Scottish Constabularies and replace it with just one.

The cost will be at least £92million and cost between 3,000 - 4,000 frontline police officers.

Both the Labour party and Conservatives have joined the SNP and now all three also want to create just one fire service as well. Labour also want to centralise care and NHS services.

Although the Liberal Democrats are often against centralisation, the proposals by Alex Salmond, Iain Gray and Annabel Goldie just don't make sense in many areas of Scotland - especially in the rural communities and the many islands that make up this great country.

Their expensive proposals must be stopped.

You can watch Tavish Scott and Charles Kennedy explain why below.




You can sign the online petition HERE and like the facebook campaign page HERE.

Police Federation go for scaremongering advert

When I got to page 15 of my Metro this morning, I was somewhat taken aback by the advert from the Police Federation.

I think it is cheap and nasty scaremongering.

Don't get me wrong, organisations have the democratic right to their views, and to voice them, but cheap scaremongering from the Police Federation is just that, cheap.

The Police Federation is an organisation I have worked with over the years, mainly when I worked for Vince Cable MP, who at the time was the Chair of the All Party Parliamentary Group on Police.

According to their website:

the Federation is reliant on negotiation alone to reach agreements on pay and conditions.

I'm not keen on their current attempt to negotiate.

Here in Scotland we have the SNP, Conservatives and Labour planning to scrap local policing putting around 3,000 frontline police jobs at risk.

Not through cuts to funding streams but through a massive and expensive centralisation programme.

The Scottish Liberal Democrats are fighting this disastrous proposal from the other three parties, we want local police to be local police, not directed by bueracrats in Edinburgh.

Police should be out on the beat, not filling out paperwork in back offices and certainly not all pulled from communities around Scotland to police football matches in the big cities by the Edinburgh bueracrats.

They also want to centralise our fire service as well, what is next after the police and fire services?

Sign our petition today to add your voice to Save our Police and Fire services.

Scottish Police pledge swifter response for homophobic and racist crimes

Why?

I am sorry, I really do not agree with this one and I say that as someone who has suffered homophobic crime twice in my lifetime, one was a mugging and the other was more serious.

Did I want the police to prioritise those crimes any differently to the occasion we were burgled, absolutely not, they were all crimes and I would want them treating no differently to any other crime.

The Scotsman was carrying this story earlier this week and Assistant Chief Constable Mike McCormick, of Lothian and Borders Police, said:

"We wanted to make sure our own staff were aware of the impact hate crime has.

This I agree with, informing all of the rank and file officers of the impact is a sensible aspect of this manual.

"If you punch me in the nose because you don't like me because of the colour of my skin, race, sexuality or whatever, that has a longer effect because I'm thinking that not only does this person not like me, but lots of other people won't like me either.

I don't agree with this and it certainly was not how I was feeling after any of the three crimes I have suffered (two homophobic and one other).

"If people say 'I had not meant any harm' it was just a bit of loose language, we're saying think hard before you say something. And we want victims of hate crime to know this is how we feel."

Again sensible, but did this really require the eight Police Forces of Scotland to bring together their best practice into one manual, or actually are we saying use your common sense?

The manual represents a promise to protect, not only ethnic minorities, but anyone who might be prejudiced against because of age, disability, gender including transgender, race including gypsy/travellers, religion or belief, and sexual orientation.

It is backed by new powers in the Offences Aggravated by Prejudice (Scotland) Act, which was passed in Scottish Parliament earlier this year.

All commons sense again, or as my Mum used to say, treat other people how you would expect to be treated, good advice that if a few more people took heed of, the society we live in can only benefit.

There was one part in the article that was spot on.

Sergeant Martin White, of the diversity unit at Lothian and Borders Police, one of the officers who wrote the manual, said:

"(Under the act] if someone is arrested for hate crime, we must look to put them before the courts as soon as possible, if not from custody then bailed to appear as soon as possible.

"In the courts, hate crime has to be recorded and reflected in the sentence. It gives the courts the chance to give an appropriate sentence."

But surely, every single victim of crime deserves that same right?

All crime has to be recorded and the sentence must reflect the crime.

My message to all Scottish Police Officers today is simple, once the crime is identified ensure the perpetrator is apprehended and pushed through the system.

My message to the courts and judges is also simple, ensure you act swiftly, take the accused off the streets and ensure the sentence fits and is carried out to completion, a weeks good behaviour behind bars doesn't help the victim, whoever they are.

Please let us not treat homophobic or racist crimes any different, crime is crime and if you commit crime, you should be punished - simples!

David Mundell MP quizzed by police over election expenses

Following the announcement of David Mundell's election expenses mistake - Police probe David Mundell election expenses complaint - and then the news - David Mundell MP set to appear in court over election expenses probe - well, it appears now that the Police have in fact finally got around to this case.

David Mundell MP was apparently questioned by the Police two days ago on Monday.

I still don't think this will come to anything more than a fine, although the fine can be as much as £5,000.

Scotland's only Conservative MP entered a newspaper bill on the long campaign expenses that was really meant to have been entered into the short campaign section, but that would have meant a complete overspend on the legal limit.

Let us wait and see what the Police recommend.

Brian Haw and the protestors village at Parliament Square

What harm has Brian Haw and his merry band of protesters ever done?

When I worked in Parliament and then Westminster area they became part of the every day scene and a reminder that our democracy is based on free speech, something as a Liberal Democrat, I am immensely proud of.

So yesterday when it was announced the Police during a search of the tents, prior to the arrival of HM The Queen for the State Opening of Parliament, had then arrested Brian Haw and Barbara Tucker I was dismayed.  The Police presence as very often in London, was well over the top as you can see from this photo by The Press Association.

Now we hear that Boris Johnson is applying to The High Court to have the protesters removed from Parliament Square altogether.

Boris, you have got this one wrong, what harm are they actually doing? 

Don't we have a right to protest in this democratic country of ours?

In The Guardian, Shami Chakrabati, director of Liberty, the human rights campaign group, said:

"We are very sad to see that on a day that is supposed to celebrate British democracy, peaceful dissent is also shut down. The new coalition government has promised to restore the right to non-violent protest. Attempts to clear Parliament Square are not the most promising start."

Now, I accept when I worked in the area there were no more than 10 tents and now there in excess of 30+, but surely we should still remain focussed on the fact that this is a democratic country with free speech?

These people have not scaled the walls of Parliament nor broken through security like the Greenpeace protesters have in the past.  No, they have merely pitched a tent and are protesting about a cause they believe in opposite the Mother of all Parliaments as is their right to do so in this country.

Let us hope Boris Johnson fails in his bid to remove them.

Is photography the new crime?

There is, rightly so, a lot of anger at the moment about the over the top tactics taken by some police officers when confronted with a member of the public armed with.........wait for it, a camera! Yes, a camera.

Among those who appear to have been targeted by the Metropolitan police is Grant Smith, one of the country's leading architectural photographers, who was apprehended by seven, yes seven, police officers while taking pictures of a church in the City of London.

The police defended this over the top action in the Daily Telegraph, "In response to its treatment of photographers, the City of London Police earlier this month released details of an arrest made by officers who spotted a man filming on his mobile phone, which it said had helped to avert a terrorist attack on the capital."

"Footage shot on the Algerian man's Nokia N95 mobile phone showed he had filmed at railway and tube stations and shopping centres. Senior officers said it was a "hostile reconnaissance" video."

That doesn't mean everyone with a mobile phone or a camera is a terrorist.

I'm sorry, but the advice given by the Metropolitan Police Service is very clear and yet again it's officers who apprehended Grant Smith have not heeded it nor sought clarification.

Even The Royal Photographic Society has got involved in this latest drama issuing advice not just to it's Members but to the public as well, they also include a link to the Metropolitan Police Service websites photography advice page, where it says "Members of the public and the media do not need a permit to film or photograph in public places and police have no power to stop them filming or photographing incidents or police personnel."

It goes on to say under both Sections 43 and 44 of the Terrorism Act 2000, that "Officers do not have the power to delete digital images or destroy film at any point during a search."

It appears, more in London than elsewhere (so far) that police officers and even more so, police community support officers are getting a little bit power crazy and don't fully understand the law, so much that in yesterdays Sunday Telegraph 365 of Britain's most eminent photographers signed a letter asking for a change in anti-terrorist legislation.

Paul Lewis, a journalist for The Guardian, shows in this video clip that the police don't understand the legislation fully and certainly didn't follow this piece of advice from their own guidance - "However, where it is clear that the person being searched is a journalist, officers should exercise caution before viewing images as images acquired or created for the purposes of journalism may constitute journalistic material and should not be viewed without a Court Order."

When I took this photo in Edinburgh earlier this year, this new piece of legislation had only just come into force, I dread to think what may have happened, as I am not a journalist nor is that interesting to anyone but me.














It was outside the Edinburgh International Conference Centre and it was the AGM of the Royal Bank of Scotland and students from Edinburgh Universities were protesting about the bank sweeping their involvement in fossil fuels under the carpet.

I took the photo of the policeman taking a photo of the protesters.

I did tell you it wasn't that interesting, but it is to me and no, I am not a terrorist.

Paramedics attacked while treating patient

Two paramedics were treating a 70 year old woman in the back of an ambulance in Banknock in Stirlingshire when they were attacked.

A gang of youths threw a bottle of buckfast (classy) through the window which then hit the paramedics and the patient.

This mindless attack then resulted in a second ambulance being sent out to transport the patient to hospital.

For crying out loud, how on earth can teenagers think this is acceptable? and according to the BBC they were drunk.

Unfortunately by the time the Police had arrived the gang had scattered - well let us hope that there was CCTV in the area that can be used to identify the gang and bring them to justice before they really hurt someone, or worse.