The Nasty Party. Not who you thought it was.

I really hadn’t noticed that the legal system we have in Scotland had changed.  But apparently it has.  

Why else would the first minister launch an outspoken attack of allegations of Tory election fraud during the 2015 campaign, suggesting they could have bought the contest and claiming Theresa May had called a snap election before criminal prosecutions could be brought.   She knew full well that those whe was attacking could not answer back. 

And there was me thinking that the basis of our law in Scotland was presumed innocence until being found guilty.   

Not for Nicola it seems.  Her speech today at the TUC conference in Aviemore was pretty explicit.   

She said: “Whatever else happens in this election we should not allow the Tory party to escape the accountability for any misdemeanours that may have led to them buying the last general election.”   

Yes, she added the word “may” to keep her out of the liable courts.   

But it really was pretty desperate and nasty stuff. 

Scotlands First Minister.

She has a problem.  She is simply incapable of saying anything positive about anything that comes out from Westminster.   

And I think people are really getting a bit fed up with her posturing.   

She will of course want the election fought on how bad Westminster is to us Scots.  And I can see why she will play this diversionary tactic to its full given the state of Scottish Education and the NHS in Scotland.  And what of the impending recession that more than likely will be hitting Scotland in the next quarter while the rest of the UK is actually doing pretty ok thank you.  But it will still be Westminsters fault somehow.

North Korea does a good job of persuading its people they are actually the richest in the world, and they believe it never having had the chance to see the real world outside.  But Nicola’s problem is we in Scotland do see the outside world.  And it’s doing a lot better than Scotland under her watch.

It's a General Election.

Well, surprise surprise.  Out of the blue.   

But did the Prime Minister actually have any other option when Labour said that it would not vote for any agreement on the EU unless it contained all the demands it was making.  Such a position from the main party of Opposition in the UK Parliament hardly gives the PM room for negotiation.  Labour effectively want to tell our EU friends what the final outcome will be.   

We should of course stop referring to this agreement as one we are engaging in to leave the EU.  We’re leaving the EU.  That’s what we voted for.  It is an agreement on what relationship we will have with the EU once we are out. 

Tim Farron, Lib Dem leader, still hasn’t quite got his head round the fact that the people voted to leave the EU.  And as we all knew before we voted, leaving the EU means we are leaving the jurisdiction of the European Court of Justice and we are leaving the Single Market.   He can't get his head round that either.

But leaving the EU does not mean we won’t trade with EU on good terms.  Far from it.  We will happily still buy German, Spanish and French built cars.  People in the EU will still buy our engineering and financial products.   

And the only people who will get in the way of that will be politicians.  Like Sir Keir Starmer.  Like Tim Farron.   They are the blockage to a good deal.

I have to say one of the biggest laughs on what was actually a very serious day was the comments from Scotland’s first minister. Ms Sturgeon said the move was an "extraordinary u-turn" by Mrs May.   

Well, if anyone is good at u turns it is Nicola.  A once in a generation referendum on Scottish independence?  Aye right, Nicola.

Hi-jacking an event. Where's your manners?

Under the banner headline “Awkward questions are how the press hold you accountable, Mr Corbyn. Let us do our job” Kate McCann Senior Political Correspondent at The Telegraph suggested that by not answering a question yesterday about Syria he was somehow refusing to answer the question.  It does sound bad.   

Actually, what happened was the media, starting with the BBC, tried to hi-jack a meeting hosted by the Federation of Small Businesses.  The subject of the meeting was late payment.   

Yes, it might sound a bit boring but late payment, largely by bigger organisations, destroys 50,000 small firms a year as a result of unfair and lengthy delays paying what they owe.   (Just imagine for a moment if your employer at the end of the month said, sorry, not paying you for another 60 days.  You wouldn’t be happy I would guess.). Others often have to take out loans to cover the gap.   

Basically small businesses are being asked to act as a bank to lend money to big business.  So with 136 businesses a day going bust because of these practices leaving owners penniless and employees unemployed, what does the BBC ask?  About Syria.   

Nothing to do with what was being discussed.  

It was as if the BBC journalist was not at all interested in what the FSB and Corbyn had to say about late payment.  There are plenty of other opportunities to get answers from Corbyn on Syria.  But no, in the frenzy that is the 24 hour news agenda, the journalist thought it was ok to hi-jack a conference set up to discuss what is really damaging our country, our economy and the jobs of thousands of people for their own self-serving aims.  The BBC, the Telegraph, to name but two media out-lets, really need to employ a better quality of journalist.  With a set of manners.

The police are the public and the public are the police.

Campbell McBryer is a retired counter terrorism officer who served with Sussex police for 23 years.  He went to London today to pay respects at the funeral of PC Keith Palmer.

He said to the BBC: "I'm very proud, but it's very sad. I just sat and cried when I heard the news.  It's just ordinary men and women doing extraordinary things.  (The police) is one big family."

Special sergeant Matthew Warden, from Nottinghamshire, said he had made the journey "because we are all one big family".

Poignant sentiments, particularly as the Officer is laid to rest today.  But fundamentally flawed thinking exists behind them.  PC Palmer was not part of a police family.  There is no such thing according to Sir Robert Peel the founder of the modern police force in England in 1829.  

Known as the father of modern policing, slightly inaccurately as an Act of Parliament in 1800 enabled Glasgow to establish the City of Glasgow Police, (often described as the first professional police force in Britain), Peel did develop the nine Peelian Principles which define the ethical requirements police officers must follow to be effective.  They are taught these when the join the force.  Peel declared: “The police are the public and the public are the police”.    

This is a profound statement in which he stipulated that it was the duty of a police officer to maintain, at all times, a relationship with the public that gives reality to the historic tradition that the police are the public and that the public are the police.   

All the police are, according to Peel, are “the only members of the public who are paid to give full-time attention to duties which are incumbent on every citizen in the interests of community welfare and existence”.  

PC Palmer was part of the family that is our society, our communities.  He didn’t belong to the police.  He belonged to us all.  Because he was one of us.  

That many police officers of today appear not to recognise this, as was demonstrated sadly today with police officers lining the streets, not the public, they were kept back, undermines confidence we may have in them and showed all too starkly that they do believe they are a family.  A separate group in society.