The signs have been there for some time – all is not well in our national police service. The latest manifestations may be invisible to the untrained eye, but they are the newest canaries joining the increasingly loud chorus from the flock further down the mine. The continual pretence that there is nothing to see here is slowly shredding the remnants of the reputation policing in Scotland once had for being amongst the finest in the world.

You would have thought that when applications to join the police fell by over 60% in 2022 it would have jolted some soul-searching — that perhaps something was going awry. You might even have thought that when applicants the following year were failing the vetting process at a rate of one in five, against a historic rate of one in 50, someone might have recognised there was a problem. And you might have thought that when only two people applied to be Chief Constable of the Scottish force — a job with one of the highest public sector salaries in the country — there really was cause for concern. But on each occasion, the facts were glossed over and, to continue with the wildlife analogies, the temperature of the water in which the frog was sitting was ratcheted up a few degrees more.

Rather than acknowledge that policing is no longer seen as a career of choice, our service spins the line that 3,000 annual applicants shows all in the garden is rosy. Any idiot can fill in the application — and an increasingly high proportion do. Rather than admit that by fishing from a much smaller pool and in a panic to get people in the door, more recruits are being jettisoned at the last minute........

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