This has been some month so far for Scotland’s forces of law and order.
Forced to pay millions of pounds to those “wrongfully arrested” over the Ibrox scandal in 2012, their big investigatory declaration over the weekend is that they are studying the incident where fireworks were let off outside Celtic Park on Saturday afternoon.
Wow.
Are the “real police” busy, or is there just no crime in the country right now?
Today we’ve heard that they don’t believe it’s in the public interest to release the details of their “policing operations” in and around Ibrox and George Square a few weeks back, when the second Ibrox club celebrated its sole league title win.
Their attempts to defend this ridiculous decision are absolutely laughable.
To detail the discussions they had beforehand, with various parties including the Ibrox club, would risk future policing operations? Are they having a laugh?
Who do they think is eagerly awaiting this information; Al-Qaeda?
The problem here is that there didn’t seem to be a police operation of any sort going on, not that something went wrong. No policing was done. Criminals were allowed free reign. Vandalism went on whilst their officers were having selfies taken. And it’s not in the public interest that we know why they decided not to enforce the law?
That’s a joke, and so is the way that the SNP tried to make this into a party political issue, and slammed the Lib Dems and Labour for daring to “criticise the police.”
Well I’ll tell you something, it’s a bad day for democracy when people aren’t allowed to do that. Indeed, it’s a deeply sinister day when the head of a democratic government makes that argument.
Police Scotland are, to be blunt, a law unto themselves and that’s part of the problem here and the events of that weekend are a scandal; they took an operational decision not to enforce the law.
If the Scottish Government doesn’t think the Scottish public has a right to know what talks took place in the run-up to that decision, then they are everything their critics say they are.
We have a right to know.
This is a matter where a decision was arrived at to allow thousands of people to violate the laws designed to restrict the spread of a deadly virus. That’s what we’re talking about here; this wasn’t simply about letting the Peepul have their wee party. The restrictions exist to limit opportunities for this bug to make people sick and even kill them.
Indeed, in the aftermath of it there was a notable uptick in cases across the West of Scotland.
Police officers returned positive tests as a result of it.
Their bosses, along with members of the government and the Ibrox hierarchy were involved in the decision-making process which led to that. People probably have died as a consequence of it, and in any other situation the decision which led to a police operation which led to people getting hurt would have sparked a public inquiry.
The Police Scotland statement is an insult.
The Scottish Government standing in front of them over it is an outrage.
Not enough is being made in the media of how just plain wrong it is in a country that is supposed to value transparency that the details of a multi-agency discussion where such a decision was taken are to remain secret.
It sets an horrific precedent for the future.
Did they really believe that this would park that issue?
Do they really believe that they can waive away questions over the total lack of professionalism that day?
Do they think pictures of their officers taking selfies with people who were breaking the law are really going to be so readily dismissed by putting forth a ludicrous defence that it’s non-disclosure that benefits the public interest?
That’s simply untenable and asks more questions than it answers, and the first is this; what exactly are they trying to hide here?
Who’s interests are really being served?
Because sure as Hell it isn’t the public’s at large.
The Scottish Government may well believe that beating up on the hapless Labour and Lib Dem frontbenches will make this matter go away but the questions are being asked in places other than Holyrood and by people other than the opposition … who, by the way, are just doing their jobs in this case.
They are dead wrong if they think this is closed.
There are elements of this that stink like a three day old nappy.
This matter is not going away just because they wish that it would.