I’m not counting but after 6 years and averaging around 3 posts a day, I must have written more than 6 thousand and, you can be sure, many of those have been correcting fibs from such as TG, above. It’s now all getting a bit déjà vu. Is it possible TG is just writing clickbait now and doesn’t actually care about anything any more?

This is one more suggestion that the SNP will suffer for something or other but, when the next election comes along or the next poll comes out, they just haven’t.

Today’s piece is a bit of repeat of a BBC Scotland report [Usually it’s the other way round] three days ago, so my answer is the same.

Here is some evidence to suggest that policing in Scotland is more robust than TG implies and that the SNP [sic], Scottish Government has little to fear:

https://www.gov.scot/publications/recorded-crime-scotland-2018-19/pages/4/

Scotland’s Chief Statistician has published statistics on Police Officer Quarterly Strength, which gives the number of full-time equivalent police officers employed by Police Scotland. The key findings of the statistics are:

there were 17,256 full-time equivalent (FTE) police officers in Scotland on 30 September 2019

police officer numbers increased by 108 FTE officers (+0.6%) in the last year from 30 September 2018

an increase of 1,022 FTE police officers (+6.3%) from the 16,234 FTE police officers recorded at 31 March 2007

https://news.gov.scot/news/police-officer-quarterly-strength-statistics-scotland-30-september-2019

Scotland’s police officers received a 6.5% 31-month pay deal, announced in September 2018 and described by the Scottish Police Federation as the greatest single increase in police pay for over 20 years; This compared with 2% for English and Welsh officers in 2018 and 2.5% in 2019. The basic starting salary for new constables in Scotland is £26,037, in contrast to £20,880 in England and Wales.

https://news.gov.scot/news/policing-in-scotland

OK, nothing there. What about absence due to stress?

https://talkingupscotlandtwo.com/2019/11/01/scotlands-police-officer-absence-rate-due-to-stress-less-than-half-that-of-uk-and-not-increasing/

Oh.

I know! What about public satisfaction with Police Scotland?

https://talkingupscotlandtwo.com/2019/10/14/shock-rise-in-police-scotland-satisfaction-rate-but-heralds-editorial-guidelines-lead-to-anything-else/

Oh.

Assaults ON police officers!?

https://talkingupscotlandtwo.com/2019/10/11/assaults-on-police-officers-in-scotland-fall-to-half-that-of-england-wales/

Chill, everyone.