Cause for concern
This reference will take you to an article in today’s Scottish Review, written by its editor Kenneth Roy.
Mr Roy is one of my country’s most respected journalists, and he would not publish such a story lightly. It tells a shocking and intolerable tale of indifference, incompetence, and outright neglect of duty by a public authority. Given that the body in question is Strathclyde police service, it’s a matter of even greater concern.
It is all the more significant, because Scotland stands on the edge of the merger of its eight police forces into one single body, a move driven by the Justice Secretary, Kenny McAskill, without any significant public consultation or debate, and in the face of the disapproval of many senior police officers. It has been my view since its foundation, thirty-something years ago, that Strathclyde police service is itself too big for effective supervision and control from the top, and the outrageous treatment of the lady at the centre of this story can only endorse that opinion. As Mr Roy notes, the favourite to be appointed as head of the new single Scottish police service is Stephen House, current chief constable of Strathclyde. I have no doubt that he is a very competent policeman, and an equally competent manager. But if he can’t keep a grip of what is happening in Ayrshire, how can he, or anyone else, be expected to ensure that the public in Lerwick, or Aberdeen, or Dundee or Fort William or Achnasheen, etc., can feel safe in their communities?
Answer that, Mr McAskill, please, before proceeding with a folly that could make all of us rest a little less easily in our beds.
Quintin Jardine's blog 
Already a bone of contention in the Skinner household though!
And no mistake.