Save your Police Force
2 May 2011
If you value your local police force being controlled locally then you will need to avoid voting for Labour or the Tories who want a single Scottish police force, or the SNP who still cannot make up their mind but who are inclined to centralise the police forces.
On 29/4/2011 BBC Reporting Scotland quoted the Lib Dems as saying: “We are the only party defending local policing and campaigning against a single police force.” The reporter did not ask the Scottish Christian Party for its views, and they are easily discovered in our Manifesto. The Scottish Christian Party is against a single police force and agrees with the chief constables of Northern Constabulary, Grampian Police and Dumfries & Galloway Constabulary who have recently argued for the control of policing to be retained locally.
George Graham, the new chief constable in Northern Constabulary, “has spoken out against a single Scottish police force saying radical changes will be costly, disruptive and distracting.” This agrees with his predecessor Ian Latimer who also criticised the proposed changes. Northern Joint Police Board has also backed this view.
This central belt agenda will not help the Highlands and Islands. Centralisation is likely to demoralise forces, inhibit local efficiencies and it is too high a price to pay for imagined efficiencies. Retain control of Northern Constabulary in the Highlands and Islands and stop Central Belt centralisation. Vote for the Scottish Christian Party to oppose the centralisation of Scottish police forces.
On the BBC news on 2/5/2011 Tavish Scott, the Scottish leader of the Lib Dems, repeated this misrespresentation by saying that only the Lib Dems are against a single police force. Possibly the BBC agenda of confining discussion to the major parties has misled the Lib Dems into thinking that the smaller parties don’t exist. The wish is possibly the father of the thought.