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Friday, 29th August 2008

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Glasgow East: Salmond attacked over policing



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LABOUR accused the SNP leader Alex Salmond of misleading voters over police numbers.
Mr Salmond had said that the SNP has increased police numbers, but Labour said there were 29 fewer officers serving Glasgow East since he came to power.


The full article contains 46 words and appears in The Scotsman newspaper.
Page 1 of 1

 
1

AM2,

Scotland,UK 21/07/2008 00:00:38
Labour’s almost right. Strathclyde Police B Division covers Shettleston, Bailleston, Easterhouse and various other areas.

It had 1071 police officers a year ago and now there are 1042. So that is indeed 29 fewer. But they’re not all in Glasgow East.

A Division (Glasgow Central and West) has 12 fewer officers than last year and G Division (Glasgow South and East Renfrewshire) has 23 fewer officers.

Outside Glasgow:

K Division (Renfrewshire & Inverclyde): 21 fewer officers than last year
L Division (Argyle, Bute & West Dunbartonshire): 20 fewer officers
N Division (North Lanarkshire): 36 fewer
Q Division (South Lanarkshire): 24 fewer
U Division (Ayrshire): 49 fewer

That’s a total of 214 fewer police officers across Strathclyde.

I’m not quite sure how SNP candidate John Mason can say “we’re tackling crime by putting more police on the streets” and keep a straight face.


Source: June 2008 divisional performance updates
http://www.strathclyde.police.uk/index.asp?locID=86&docID=-1
2

,

21/07/2008 00:42:43
Comment Removed By Administrator
Reason:
3

Coileach an taobh Tuath,

21/07/2008 00:44:01
1 AM2, Scotland,UK 21/07/2008 00:00:38

Can you tell us what the rate of decrease was over the last 2 years?

Has it slowed in the last 4 months since the SNP budget?

4

a proud doonhamer,

Dumfries 21/07/2008 00:45:58
More self serving tripe from our resident troll. The number of officers assigned to Strathclyde are up. Funding has been provided to increase the numbers and as someone who often memorizes the budget numbers, our troll knows this well enough. Current numbers fluctuate depending on how many retire in a given perior and how many graduate from training. He knows that as well for he was posting this fact not long ago.

In short, twisted spin from AM2, our troll is not a rarity on this thread or this site.

As a last point, I wonder how long it will take for him to whine to the administrator and demand that this comment be removed. My personal bet is less than 3 hours. Time will tell.
5

ThomasP,

21/07/2008 00:49:26
How pointless.

L"ABOUR accused the SNP leader Alex Salmond of misleading voters over police numbers. Mr Salmond had said that the SNP has increased police numbers, but Labour said there were 29 fewer officers serving Glasgow East since he came to power."

Labour are failing to actually provide evidence of the numbers.

If Labour reveal numbers perhaps we shall witness the amount of Police that the previous Government recruited?

Something to hide maybe...
6

AM2,

Scotland,UK 21/07/2008 01:03:51
You’re deflecting to try and defend the indefensible. Alex Salmond referred to “training more police for our communities” and John Mason said that they’re “putting more police on the streets”. That will have given the impression that there are more police than before. But in fact there are fewer.
7

Coileach an taobh Tuath,

21/07/2008 01:06:55
6 AM2, Scotland,UK 21/07/2008 01:03:51

Just answer the questions AM2.... what's wrong doesn't the answer suit you?

Can you tell us what the rate of decrease was over the last 2 years?

Has it slowed in the last 4 months since the SNP budget?
8

Coileach an taobh Tuath,

21/07/2008 01:07:48
6 AM2, Scotland,UK 21/07/2008 01:03:51

Can you clarify what Labour's Policy is on additional Police?

9

a proud doonhamer,

Dumfries 21/07/2008 01:32:26
8

Don't confuse him. If Labour's manifesto had been approved, there would have been hundreds less.

Also let us all remember how Labour voted on the budget that approved the 1000 new police officers on the front lines.

one solitary Labour MSP voted against the funding of additional police officers... and what did the rest do?

Well, they all abstained from voting. When it came to support the funding of the new officers, all but one, including Maggie Curran, ran away and hid.

Aye, that is how Labour stands up for Glasgow East or for anywhere in Scotland.
10

Proximaking,

Aberdeen 21/07/2008 07:29:48
Get police on the streets, singly, with cameras and from seeing a suspect to booking them in the station can be recorded, sound continuously and pictures one every half second or so. Hey presto twice as many "units" on the beat because they are going singly as they always used to without all the benefits of radio or stab vests or whatever and no more writing up of reports wasting time and straight back out onto the beat to catch another one so also increasing the "units" on the beat. Of course that is just the problem the police would have to work for a living and talk to members of the public, so finding things out rather than talking to a police colleague finding out nothing, instead of sitting in a nice warm office whingeing about form filling or waiting in a court room. It's coming but not nearly fast enough and it would also stop the annoying habit of police officers in assuming everyone should be spoken to like they are sh*t (another good word banned by the lunatic Sc*tsman thought police it seems) on their shoe instead of their employers. If a police officer "loses" a recording during an "incident" it should be assumed the officer "lost" it on purpose and the defendant should go free or the law suit for police bad behaviour settled. More than one such loss per year and the officer should be sacked and no questions asked. The chances of a failure just happening to coincide with an incident are minimal unless violence was used against the officer in which case the lead up to the failure would be recorded. It's called the commonsense solution and of course lawyers hate it because half of their work is "you said this", "no I didn't", "yes you did", "No I didn't" ad infinitum wasting police and court time and our money. And if officers don't like the intrusion on "their time" on the beat they can always go and do some other job with half the salary and fringe benefits.

lllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllll llllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllll llllllllll
11

Highland Mighty©,

21/07/2008 09:32:27
Excellent posts by our resident nationalists.

Just excellent.
12

Americanbob,

21/07/2008 11:26:26
Has everybody gone nuts on this thread?
13

Matt there,

somewhere 21/07/2008 23:26:56
This is not a news story! It is a 40 word Labour Party media briefing!

What ARE you doing, Scotsman?
14

AM2,

Scotland,UK 21/07/2008 23:55:13
Coileach, Doonhamer

What has what Labour, or any other party for that matter, got to do with this?

The article (if indeed it can be accorded such a grand title) suggested that Alex Salmond had hinted that police numbers had risen, when in fact they have fallen.

I took the time to find the quotes (both Alex Salmond and John Mason, as it happens) and the exact numbers. Basically, the criticism is fair enough.

Your only real response was to try and deflect attention, to shift the focus onto other issues under the same general heading. Is that your idea of honest politics?
15

Jorel,

scotland 30/07/2008 12:28:34
i love the sound of that title!

 

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