An invisible Minister for Nothing to Do with Me

WERE Michael Matheson a football player, he’d stand against an advertising hoarding that matched his shirt until the final whistle, when he would reemerge to take a leading role in the post-match celebrations.

The Justice Secretary briefly broke cover this week to trumpet crime dropping to ‘historically low levels’. The statistics back him, but they’re like a bikini – what they reveal is interesting and what they conceal is vital.

The mendacious SNP spin machine had been at the figures and 288,000 offences including thousands of assaults were ignored. That is a disgrace. It insults victims, telling them that no matter how battered they are, they don’t matter as the streets are, officially, safe.

So if you’re caught in a taxi-rank rammy; if there’s a figure in your garden in the wee sma’ hours; if you have a spittle-flecked road-rager threatening you – take heart. Statistically, you are safer than ever.

And Police Scotland’s crime clear-up rate has, despite the efforts of the rankand-file officers who keep the behemoth going, slipped to around 50 per cent. Add in the soft-touch agenda that means jails will soon be quieter than a Blockbuster video store and there’s never been a better time to be a criminal.

Mr Matheson has been conspicuous by his absence during the chaos engulfing Police Scotland. It suits him to pretend the leadership crisis is something the guys with scrambled egg on their hats must sort out at HQ in Tulliallan.

Nonsense. While no justice secretary should meddle in operational matters, the buck for the management of the UK’s biggest force outside London’s Met stops very definitely at the burnished mahogany desk under which Mr Matheson hides.

To lose one chief constable amid recriminations looks unfortunate; to have a second embark on ‘special leave’ looks incompetent; to pretend there’s no crisis at all, as SNP leader Nicola Sturgeon does, looks downright deceitful.

You see this nothing-to-do-withme-pal approach elsewhere.

Shona Robison at Health is forever saying she is committed to getting this board or that board to deliver. The implication is it’s all their fault.

‘I’d have the NHS licked if it wasn’t for those pesky health boards. Dreadful shower, but I’m lumbered with them…’

AT Education, John Swinney is like Nelson with the telescope to his blind eye. Sleekit Swinney says he ‘does not recognise’ the bleak picture of state schools painted by newspapers.

‘There you go, Jeannie. Just stop mum and dad reading that dreadful Daily Mail and instantly you shall have seven As and a glowing career at NASA. Yes, I know your school’s decrepit with no maths teacher but blame the journalists. And anyway, look how much worse things are in Greece…’

And when the politicians start the hoodwinking game, others follow.

Deputy Chief Constable Iain Livingstone is running Police Scotland. He said there was a problem with the public’s ‘perception’ that there are no police around and we’re told shutting stations will help as officers will now eat their lunch while out and about.

Statistics show the number of people who believe that is zero – and the odds on Mr Matheson being in post at Christmas are about as low.