The policeman isn't there to create disorder; the policeman is there to preserve disorder.

 As the Scottish media begin to get their collective knickers in a flap at the prospect of the thin blue line getting even thinner due to the impending apocalypse of Labour's recession that threatens to bring the country to its knees in a holocaust of untrammelled crime and pure mad mentalness, it might be an apposite time to ponder over the expected responses and blames that will emanate from certain quarters.

Without directly quoting  their brave local MP, the Dumfries and Galloway SubStandard manages to jump ahead of their bigtown counterparts and place the blame fairly and squarely on the shoulders of the local council and the Scottish Government. Chief reporter Craig Robertson, summarised the 'last minute item on the police committee agenda' as follows:  

138 support staff could lose their jobs. 

Officers would be taken off the front-line to cover backroom work. 

The structure of the force could be reduced from two divisions into one.

School liasion officers could be removed.


Drug and fraud squad officers could be cut.

Police stations might even be closed

The proposed cutbacks are as a result of the reduction in cash coming from the council and Scottish Government and are the clearest indication yet on how local policing will be affected.

Now Craig is a sweet young feller with a fascinating line in faux Liam Gallagher haircuts, flamboyant padded jackets and impartiality, particularly when it comes to SNP councillors sharing cars to meetings and claiming mileage for it, thus saving the tax payer two sets of mileage claims...However, in this case he manages to throw an awful lot of conjecture into a piece lacking detail, but jampacked with fear, naturally he doesn't mention that the original cut in funding is coming from...where? That's right the pocket money that the London parties dole out to the teenage parliament in Edinburgh.

The irony of course is that this last minute addition to the police committee meeting appears on the agenda at the behest of D&G's Chief plod Pat Shearer, who, when he's not thwarting crime as far afield as Annan and Stranraer, wears this splendid title; President of the Association of Chief Police Officers in Scotland, or ACPOS for short. Mr Shearer is no stranger when it comes to stirring the pot, particularly when it comes to protecting his members inflation proof pensions and deploying the begging bowl in a style worthy of Master O. Twist. He also presided over basic errors in arithmetic when his force accountant managed to count their pension contributions twice and added up his forces budget wrong. Pity he released these figures to the local media which resulted in near apoplexy from our Unionist friends. Only when the error was discovered was it passed it off as 'an honest mistake', of course this wasn't given as much coverage in the esteemed Substandard.

So far, so D&G. We we are told cutbacks are inevitable, Les Gray (no relation I presume) of the Scottish Police Federation warns this morning that 'People will not be safe on the streets'. Unison leaders cannot rule out 'industrial action'. Which makes me wonder whether there's a natural justice in bringing retired miners out of their care homes to 'police' any police industrial action. What goes around...

The reality is, that cuts are going to have to be made, the Scottish Government will get both barrels of the sawn-off shotgun of blame for a mess they are simply trickling down from our Lords and masters in Westminster. Then again, with crime stats supposedly showing us that recorded crime is at a 30 year low (aye right), the plethora of CCTV cameras (nope I've rarely heard of one saving a life or catching a crim) and fancy new police websites (goooo D&G, second best polis website in the UK, how many hits?) perhaps there are certain areas where the Police service might trim the fat, like every other organisation in the land. I'm not suggesting doughnuts should be cut, but some plod and their police dugs, could do with losing a smidge weight.