Blundering force

COBBLED together with indecent haste and inauspiciously launched on April Fool’s Day 2013 by an SNP blind to all warnings, Police Scotland has had a difficult birth.

Today the force grapples with huge staffing and budgetary issues. It manages to keep going in hugely challenging circumstances largely thanks to the unstinting efforts of its magnificent people.

But the inescapable truth is that public confidence in the force’s ability to keep them safe has been rocked.

Lamara Bell died having been left with her dead boyfriend in the wreckage of a car by the M9 after reports of the crash were mishandled by police.

And today we carry the story of a case with similar troubling overtones.

Reports that a vulnerable man may have killed himself went unchecked for a week. Concerned members of the public were incorrectly told no officers were available to attend.

The police watchdog’s report is highly critical of how this heartbreaking case was handled.

But since the force’s inception, it has suited the SNP to let chief constables Sir Stephen House and now Phil Gormley take the entire blame for its problems. Justice secretaries Kenny MacAskill and Michael Matheson, the current incumbent, have been only too happy to sidestep criticism.

Mr Matheson must not be allowed to pull his usual Invisible Man trick when things go wrong with policing.

He bears ultimate responsibility for the force and ought to be telling the public what he is doing to prevent repetitions of such bungled cases.