Cops bid to recruit airwave experts
Police chiefs want to recruit four radio experts to spy- proof vital equipment used on operations and investigations into major criminals.
Successful applicants will supply surveillance teams, including firearms officers, with special radios to use during raids.
They’ ll be expected to make sure the hi- tech devices will be on secret frequencies that can’t be tapped by criminals or other officers.
The radios will be used in operat ions against organised crime groups and suspected terrorists – and the four Ai rwave Communications Officers will also be expected to repair and maintain them.
The vacancies for the jobs appear on the Scottish Police Authority website.
A force insider said: “Undercover police teams involved in covert work communicate by radio but they can’t afford to have anyone listening in.
“The four Airwave staff will have to make sure that the radios work properly and are set to the right frequency on each raid so that the cops are not heard. It’s a big responsibi l ity and you need the right people.”
Recruits wi l l pocket £30,000 a year and be based in Inverness, Aberdeen, Edinburgh and Dundee. More of a two-bob rocket than a damp squib, to be honest. What a year we’ve had with Trump as leader of the free world.
He set the tone from the moment of his inauguration in January, arguing about the size of the crowd that (didn’t) turn up for it.
It was the biggest ever, according to his excitable press secretary Sean Spicer (remember him?), even though the truth was as plain as the nose on Donald’s consistently orange face.
We have learned that Trump and “the truth” are seldom in the same time zone and the fake tan is the most consistent thing about him.
Trump has threatened to “totally destroy” North Korea, pandered to Putin, imposed a travel ban on Muslims and conducted a feud with his own FBI.
He described white supremacists as “very fine people” after a violent clash with counter-protesters in Charlottesville, Virginia, left an innocent woman dead.
And when 59 people were shot dead in Las Vegas, the biggest mass shooting in US history, he still refused to talk about gun control.
What’s ahead in 2018 with Trump in charge? Could hazard a guess with one word: Impeachment. In September, Michael “Objectionable” O’Leary managed to fly Ryanair straight into a staffing crisis which saw 20,000 flights cancelled and disrupted the travel plans of some 750,000 customers of the budget airline up till March 2018.
Did he fall on his sword? Nah. The man who once claimed he would charge to use the toilets if he could – and told complaining customers to eff off – was his usual defiant self and had a go at his own pilots. He’s just been forced to recognise pilots’ unions, something he previously said he’d do once hell had frozen over.
As if all that wasn’t bad enough for travellers, Monarch Airlines collapsed, sparking the UK’s biggest peacetime repatriation, with 110,000 stranded customers brought home to Britain on specially chartered planes.
Yet boss Andrew Swaffield managed to set up a new company just days before Monarch went into administration.
Staycations next year, folks. Save your hard-earned cash. It was her debut as the posh old lady of the Well, this is it, folks. The very last day of 2017. And it’s been quite a year.
Terror attacks, sexual harassment, political upheaval and an unhinged narcissist in the White House, this year will go down in history as a bit of a honker in many ways.
But before we light the fireworks to blast out tired old 2017, here’s my take on the stand-out individuals of the past 12 months, those who lit up our lives a little and those who crashed and burned with a limp fizzle. The clear sky of a new year is just hours away. May 2018 bring us all more sparklers than damp squibs.
Great British Bake Off but Prue didn’t quite rise to the occasion like a well-whisked meringue.
Mary Berry would rather serve up sloppy souffle and brittle biccies than accidentally announce the winner – hours before the final was actually screened.
But that’s exactly what Prue did. “Bravo Sophie,” she tweeted, six hours too early. Oopsie. Someone’s soggy bottom may have been kicked over that.
Still, it saved us having to watch the final. One episode less of smarmy Paul Hollywood in action. We should be grateful to Prue
for small mercies. Life as a former party leader must be tricky. But life as a former leader who’s just lost his parliamentary seat after 30 years as an elected candidate must leave even battle-scarred old warriors feeling a bit lost.
How else do we explain some of Salmond’s behaviour in the six months since he was one of 21 SNP losses at the general election?
There’s been a one-man show at the