This article is written by Scotland’s chief of police, Iain Livingstone. Published in the Guardian, it requires wide circulation. He was a former football player for Raith Rovers before becoming a solicitor. Why he switched to become a policeman in 1992 is unknown, but quick promotion saw him heading the CID in Lothian and Borders force.
At a quick glance there are aspects of his public relations dissertation that could do with greater attention to detail and a lot of debate, such as police attitude to being used as a quasi-political force against legitimate political dissenters of one sort or another. What is the Chief Constable’s view of the Hate Crime laws, and was chasing Covid curfew breakers a wise decision? There is no mention of the chaos that was initiation of the 101 phone service. Readers should note that he touches upon Rhona Malone’s tribunal but there is nothing about the raid on the home of Mark Hirst, an action thrown out by the courts. Controversially, Livingstone feels able to express confidence in the advice of Rape Crisis Centre, a government funded body run by a man claiming to be a woman.
By merely pointing out this latter fact, I personally am liable to receive physical abuse threats from a minority of Scotland’s sociopathic society, a group supported by ScotGov, such is the climate of jeopardy and thought crime Nicola Sturgeon has engendered that affects us all. In that situation I don’t expect police protection or arrests made and I wonder why.
During the Salmond trial I received a polite but firm call from a police officer (my phone number is ex-directory) apparently ‘acting separately’ from COPFS, for the minor infringement of inadvertently republishing a newspaper article that somehow helped draw jigsaw-wise attention to complainants in the trial. No journalist that published similar was charged, or as far as I can ascertain, cautioned. My previous convictions include one speeding offence (37mph in a former 40mph zone, switched while I was in Los Angeles), and as a bored 12-year old, drawing a moustache and beard on a male face depicted on a railway poster at Portobello railway station, an indication of latent creative talent. The railway Bobby upbraided me efficiently and stopped me from a life as a hardened criminal, but I see so few local police officers on the beat these days, separation of police and community fractured.
Coincidentally, the Chief Constable’s track-record is not without its own falls from grace. Readers are referred to his page on Wikipedia. Failing to take seriously a police officer’s claim of fabricated accusation is one such black mark. As someone who writes screenplays about detectives, I have leverage in moments of difficulty. Ian Rankin must be quids-high in that regard.
Anyhow, frivolity aside, I’d like to hear what Livingstone has to say about any number of pressing police issues, for example, excessive prison numbers, and bad laws that infringe human rights, that is, anti-natural justice, yet our police are expected to enforce them. And what about progressive drug laws? Are they not a priority if they could be rescued from Westminster control?
Livingstone contends “There is still work to do, but structural improvements mean the people of Scotland are now safer and better served by the police.” If so, what and what way? As the old saying goes, everybody resents police intervention until they need the police. Or maybe lawyers said that. In any event, the comments section is open for debate, libel blocked.
RADICAL REFORM
by chief Constable Iain Livingstone
Our police services across the UK are under intense scrutiny. The onus is on us to nurture trust and legitimacy by demonstrating no tolerance for misogyny, racism and discrimination within policing and across society. Equally, ensuring an effective and professional policing response for victims and communities is a prerequisite for public confidence.
Two recent reports from Sir Michael Barber and Sir Tom Winsor both called for structural, cultural and operational reform of policing in England and Wales, as referred to in last week’s Guardian editorial. But when discussing policing reform in Britain, it is important to consider the experiences of Police Scotland. Nine years ago, 10 policing organisations in Scotland merged into a single national police service of about 23,000 people, the second largest in the UK, serving a third of Britain’s land mass and communities in villages, towns, islands and cities.
Establishing a reformed service has been enormously challenging and we did not get everything right. However, much progress has been made. Under our structure, we have strengthened operational competence and provided direct access to all policing capabilities for every citizen.
More than 520 murders and homicides have been committed in Scotland since 2013. Only two are currently unsolved. Our safety and security operation for last November’s Cop26 resulted in no significant violence, disorder or injury and relatively few arrests. The climate change summit, along with our approach to policing during the pandemic, demonstrated our core duty and responsibility to enable the public to make their voices heard, and independent reviewing has largely concluded Police Scotland did so in line with our commitment to put human rights at the heart of all we do.
Last month, I announced Police Scotland will become the first service in the world to train and equip all operational officers with Naloxone, a life-saving overdose first aid nasal-spray, on a national basis, reflecting our broad mission to improve the safety and wellbeing of communities as enshrined in the law establishing Police Scotland.
Tests remain: operational failings, or when we don’t live up to our values, are rightly subject to critical review and require persistent leadership, focus and action. We must face up to the cultural challenges of UK policing as a whole, of other sectors and organisations, and of wider society. That’s been underlined by reports including Dame Elish Angiolini’s review of police complaints and individual cases such as Rhona Malone’s employment tribunal, describing unacceptable behaviours.
ic awareness campaign asked men to challenge their own and each other’s behaviours and attitudes towards women. This was an important message for Scottish society, including for us in policing – as individuals and as a service. A verification scheme, established to reassure women approached by lone officers, also reflected the onus on policing to accept responsibility for addressing public concerns.
Policing in Scotland is realistic about the challenges ahead but confident in the progress made and optimistic we can build on it. I am encouraged by the consistently strong levels of public confidence reported in our own research, and by the recent Scottish government household survey which found 87% of respondents trusted the police.
The key assessment I apply is whether our communities and people are safer and better served now than they would have been had reform not taken place – not only for the threats of today but those of tomorrow. The answer is yes.
As we continue our own development, our offer is to share the insight and value that Scotland’s hard-earned lessons can provide to improve policing for communities across the UK.
NOTE: Iain Thomas Livingstone, QPM (born 6 October 1966) is a Scottish police officer, a graduate from Aberdeen University with a Bachelor Degree in Law. He was previously Deputy Chief Constable Designate of the force. He became CC formally on 27 August 2018.
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Grouse Beater 
What are these “threats of tomorrow” ? Call me a traditionalist but I always thought the police were there to uphold the law, not pre-empt it.
I do not know of anyone either in my family or circle of friends that trust this NEW POLICE SCOTLAND. It seems the more innocent you are, the more likely they are to come after you. Gone are the days of the LOCAL Bobby, having a wee word in your ear, or threatening you with telling your parents. Todays Police are all about locking up people a certain FM needs punished, even charging & seeing them jailed with an offence that doesn’t even exist. BUT so long as it RUINS their careers eh! Maybe when Police Scotland FIND the person/s that LEAKED lies to the DAILY retard. Then we will KNOW they are at least trying to find the TRUTH & to help protect ALL of the PEOPLE, not just A group of people within a Parliament that have lied through their teeth. This country is do corrupt today, in every public organisation. Even Judges are lying, & jailing the wrong people.. The LAW stinks..
Sorry to be a bore, but does this article actually tell us anything at all?
I am also a little perturbed by the bit about men being asked to think about their own and other men’s attitudes to women. I have no problem calling out misogyny, toxic masculinity and male violence towards women, and I continue (as I have done for most of my over sixty years on this planet) to examine my own attitudes to women. My concern arises only because sometimes men dress up as women and claim actually to be women as a consequence, which means such men are excluded from the exhortation to examine their attitudes to women – even if it seemed to others that a man dressed as a woman was being a complete dick or behaving towards women according to the well known principles of toxic masculinity and male violence. Under such circumstances I suspect that those offering complaints would be the ones who felt the long arm of the law, not the men who get away with abusing women because they believe they are themselves women.
Until such time as there are clear and distinct legal definitions of what a man is and what a woman is, I do not believe it is actually safe for sensible people of good conscience to call out misogyny in every context it might appear. In fact, it might be possible to accuse a man dressing up as a woman of misogyny for the simple fact of doing so, of pretending to be something he is not. But I do not see the law supporting this position in the current context.
The culture wars sanctioned by the Scottish government, its assorted institutions and services are becoming extremely dangerous for our society. Many hope that they will peter out and good sense prevail; others believe this is just the beginning of deep manipulation of populations into total submission. I won’t be here to witness what happens, but what I am seeing during these final months of my life are not filling me with hope. It takes a long time to propagate critical thinking amongst populations who have been tamed and subjugated by ideology and political policing.
Thanks to both Gareth and Duncan Spence – not so sure about the Chief Constable.
Duncan Spence, sadly I think it tells us that Police Scotland will be ensuring that society is running smoothly, as directed by the Scottish Government. “Radical, Reform” isn’t the title, it’s a warning.
Reblogged this on Ramblings of a now 60+ Female.
Should I feel safer and more trusting of police when I call 101 to report anti-social behaviour only to find there’s a 25 minute wait to speak to someone?
Great piece again, GB. Duncan Spence: wise words, as always. A bore you are not, far from it. You hit the nail every time. The only point I would make is where you say: “… the men who get away with abusing women because they believe they are themselves women… “. Having studied this very closely, I really do believe that the number of men who actually believe they are women is infinitesimal, they are likely to be body dysphoric rather than ‘gender dysphoric’, whatever that is, and they require psychological treatment, not validation, albeit these do appear to be the ones who transition physically. The rest are undoubtedly fetishists, and this can be ascertained very rapidly when they are challenge and all the hatred and their sense of aggrieved victimhood pours out in vitriol and loathing of females.
They are dangerous and they will kill us, no matter what the deluded ones say, because they are dangerous for the very reason that they are narcissistic, entitled men who will see nothing in their way to get what they want – and what they want is to get their rocks off every which way with anyone and everyone who takes their fancy, regardless of consent. What they can’t do, most of them, is admit they have a fetish, but not, as so many assume, because they are shamed. On the contrary, their huge consumption of fetishist porn that centres women as ‘things’ to be exploited and debased, would suggest very powerfully that they enjoy the fetish they have and feed it at every opportunity – way beyond the level of addiction that a drug addict or an alcoholic display. They, at least, do not try to involve everyone else publicly in their addiction.
The National today features Stephen Paton, pleading for understanding and acceptance, but sleekitly conflates homosexuality and trans identity. The two are separate, and the former is not a lifestyle choice. Being ‘trans’, whatever that is, might well be deeply uncomfortable for some of the possessors of such an identity, but those who are both ‘trans’ and activists are anything but withdrawn. Many appear to positively revel in their fetish and their activism to invade all female spaces and rights – and let’s not forget rights because they want those, as well. They are heterosexual men, most of them. The best solution all round is for third spaces, divided into trans women’s and trans men’s, and they can leave the rest of us in peace.
Everything they do, they do as trans people, as men and women have done for millennia. Many homosexual men and lesbian women stand on a platform for homosexuals and lesbians, and why not? So why not ‘trans’ people. They should be proud and loud in campaigning for their own spaces and facilities, services and rights, and political representation, stepping into Holyrood dressed in anything they like (within reason, of course) and, alternatively, wearing beards or whatever, if they are trans men. No problem. So, why do they want women’s and girls spaces and rights? That is the million dollar question, and the one they will never, ever answer. Sorry this is so long.
Reads more like a brief performance-review than a critical essay, with little in the way of theoretical perspective. Nothing also on Scotland having the largest prison population per head and most probation orders in Western Europe; or is that not something to be proud of? As Nelson Mandela said, social institutions can be used to oppress the people.
And politically? George Osborne said that Scotland is “held by the arms of the (British) state”, i.e. Crown (COPFS and Police) and Civil Service. That still appears to be the case, given recent and ongoing events.
One wonders what a police service in an independent Scotland might be like? One wonders then if the prison population might be reduced to that of other similar sized independent nations in Europe – i.e. halved or more?
TBH judging by their recent performances and the number of undetected criminals , perverts , murderers , and police who photograph heinous crime scenes and spread them widely I cannot understand how they achieve an 87% mark in public confidence , I know not all these crimes are about polis Scotland but IMO they are no better than other forces , and the centralisation of the force is woeful
Coincidentally, yesterday I was interviewed by Ipsos Mori about this very matter. When I was asked what I thought of the local police, I said I hardly saw them. Ten minutes later a patrol van trundled down the road. Patrolling. Spooky or what? 🙂 I also got a ten quid Amazon voucher.
You are The Chosen One, Duncan. 🙂
🙂 At last recognition!