# General > Politics >  English cops warn over police Scotland Scrutiny

## BetterTogether

Interesting article on the problems now being faced by Police Scotland 

http://www.scottishlegal.com/2015/07...ical-scrutiny/

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## rob murray

> Interesting article on the problems now being faced by Police Scotland 
> 
> http://www.scottishlegal.com/2015/07...ical-scrutiny/


ANother problem that aint going away ............

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## BetterTogether

It's quite sadly amusing watching our local MP squawking on about putting an amendment to get Police & Fire Scotland Exemption from Vat. He seems to think that the government of the UK should bend the knee to Holyrood because they decided to centralise both forces against advice from HMRC and Unison plus a number of other sources which all told them that doing so would remove both forces from P33 local authority exemption. That's before we get into the 500,000 stop and searches carried out by the Police, that's a tenth of the population. Routinely armed police on the streets in the Highlands. People dying because of incompetence. Low Morale, Call Centre Closures, Redundancies to start to name but a few of the problems.

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## cptdodger

And it does'nt get any better for that poor family - http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotlan...ntral-33688928.

Something has gone badly wrong, I know a local Policeman I spoke to (before this tragedy) said it was'nt working. But whatever the problem is, it needs to be fixed to prevent this ever happening again.

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## rob murray

> It's quite sadly amusing watching our local MP squawking on about putting an amendment to get Police & Fire Scotland Exemption from Vat. He seems to think that the government of the UK should bend the knee to Holyrood because they decided to centralise both forces against advice from HMRC and Unison plus a number of other sources which all told them that doing so would remove both forces from P33 local authority exemption. That's before we get into the 500,000 stop and searches carried out by the Police, that's a tenth of the population. Routinely armed police on the streets in the Highlands. People dying because of incompetence. Low Morale, Call Centre Closures, Redundancies to start to name but a few of the problems.


Yep and in the so called consultation phase opinion was to leave all 8 forces alone, or worst option to create 3 forces...with at least a modicum of local represenation....but what do you expect from the work of the great Kenny Macaskill...a .classic case, centralisatation to save money at the expense of local inputs....what a mess....time will t here though another mess that the general non political public will have their eyes opened to.....

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## cptdodger

Is Kenny Macaskill still on the go? The nightmare that man caused when he released the Lybian bomber, whether rightly or wrongly  put it this way it did not endear Scotland to America.

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## BetterTogether

You might find this interesting an article on the SNP failing Scotland.


http://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/fe...ailed-scotland

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## rob murray

> Is Kenny Macaskill still on the go? The nightmare that man caused when he released the Lybian bomber, whether rightly or wrongly  put it this way it did not endear Scotland to America.


Yep...more hidden cloak and daggers stuff did the guy not have to sign away his right to appeal prior to the SNP agreeing to release him ??

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## cptdodger

> Yep...more hidden cloak and daggers stuff did the guy not have to sign away his right to appeal prior to the SNP agreeing to release him ??


Yes he did, I could actually give you chapter and verse on Megrahi, because I had to defend Scotland from Americans wanting to boycott us, on Facebook right enough. At one stage we were being stalked by a convicted murderer (we found out later), and also had to get the FBI involved due to an American who was sticking up for Scotland getting death threats ( to her home address). 

I cannot tell you how many times I wrote - it was one mans decision (Macaskill) not the people of Scotland, we were never asked. A few of us tried to contact him to make him aware of this, six years later, still waiting for a reply.

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## rob murray

A very murky tale all round, one which will haunt Scotland for years...why did the guy have to sign away his right of appeal....seems like underhand collusion to stop the truth emerging. Funny how many people saw the guy was competely innocent including the father of one of the deceased Dr Swires ? who has spent years campaiging to get the guy an appeal and the truth out....the truth is Mackaskill was out of his depth and leant on....so why didnt the "clean" party not come clean on this one....more lies and deciet or protecting the "national interest" ??

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## cptdodger

> A very murky tale all round, one which will haunt Scotland for years...why did the guy have to sign away his right of appeal....seems like underhand collusion to stop the truth emerging. Funny how many people saw the guy was competely innocent including the father of one of the deceased Dr Swires ? who has spent years campaiging to get the guy an appeal and the truth out....the truth is Mackaskill was out of his depth and leant on....so why didnt the "clean" party not come clean on this one....more lies and deciet or protecting the "national interest" ??


The more I looked into it, the more I believed, like the father of one of the deceased, that Al -Megrahi, was purely a scapegoat for the bombing. Somebody had to pay for it, so Gadaffi handed him to us on a plate. I could understand the American people being upset that he was released. If you take it on face value, Pan Am 103 bomber released, without looking into what went on, and what actually happened, then it's understandable.

I should have added, if he was allowed to appeal - the truth would have come out, and that would have caused problems.

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## rob murray

> The more I looked into it, the more I believed, like the father of one of the deceased, that Al -Megrahi, was purely a scapegoat for the bombing. Somebody had to pay for it, so Gadaffi handed him to us on a plate. I could understand the American people being upset that he was released. If you take it on face value, Pan Am 103 bomber released, without looking into what went on, and what actually happened, then it's understandable.
> 
> I should have added, if he was allowed to appeal - the truth would have come out, and that would have caused problems.


Undoubtably but problems to who ? and why did Scotland play a part in a covert consiprany to silence the truth ? this is forever a dirty stain right to Scotlands sole !!!

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## cptdodger

> Undoubtably but problems to who ? and why did Scotland play a part in a covert consiprany to silence the truth ? this is forever a dirty stain right to Scotlands sole !!!


To be fair, I do'nt know, I could have probably told you six years ago, but trust me, that was not a pleasant episode, not one I want to revisit, but one day, the truth is bound to come out -hopefully.

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## rob murray

> To be fair, I do'nt know, I could have probably told you six years ago, but trust me, that was not a pleasant episode, not one I want to revisit, but one day, the truth is bound to come out -hopefully.


Its a bit like who shot JFK...the web has loads of conspiracy theories so I guess we will never know, but the whole affair absolutley stinks

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## cptdodger

> Its a bit like who shot JFK...the web has loads of conspiracy theories so I guess we will never know, but the whole affair absolutley stinks


I do agree, one thing I learned though, and it was quite odd at the time, you started to learn which regions of America, would support Scotland and which would'nt, the Americans who came out in defence of us had connections through their ancestors to Scotland, a lot of which came from the Clearences !

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## rob murray

> I do agree, one thing I learned though, and it was quite odd at the time, you started to learn which regions of America, would support Scotland and which would'nt, the Americans who came out in defence of us had connections through their ancestors to Scotland, a lot of which came from the Clearences !


A bit of history for you which you may appreciate, Flora Macdonald who took the Prince ( Charles ) in disguise into Skye ( Skye boat song ) eventually married and emigrated to the carolinas where a lot of scots lived, come the war of independance most supported the King / UK as they all has first hand expereince of what it was like to be on the losing side. against the Brits...anyway they backed the wrong horse and had to flee back to scotland along with loads of King / UK "supporters" as the "rebels" confiscated proprerty, cleared people out inflicted violence etc etc....ironic eh !

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## cptdodger

> A bit of history for you which you may appreciate, Flora Macdonald who took the Prince ( Charles ) in disguise into Skye ( Skye boat song ) eventually married and emigrated to the carolinas where a lot of scots lived, come the war of independance most supported the King / UK as they all has first hand expereince of what it was like to be on the losing side. against the Brits...anyway they backed the wrong horse and had to flee back to scotland along with loads of King / UK "supporters" as the "rebels" confiscated proprerty, cleared people out inflicted violence etc etc....ironic eh !


It just shows you ! If I'm right the Carolinas, are a Southern State, I think, we did have a lot of support from there. It's something to think that people in the 18th century had seen more of the world than I have !

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## rob murray

> It just shows you ! If I'm right the Carolinas, are a Southern State, I think, we did have a lot of support from there. It's something to think that people in the 18th century had seen more of the world than I have !


Yep.....North / South Carolinas is deep south

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## BetterTogether

Are Police Scotland out of control now we have the NUJ asking whether they've been spying on journalists !http://www.scottishlegal.com/2015/07...n-journalists/

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