I wrote about violence in the pages of this paper last summer following a political maelstrom in the aftermath of extreme youth violence. On that occasion the life of a young man by the name of Thomas Matthew Crooks was cut short and his death left grieving parents with so many unanswered questions. Thomas's name is probably not one you remember but if I was to remind you that he catapulted himself into global ignominy as a result of shooting a chunk out of Donald Trump’s ear in an attempted assassination, you soon know who it is I was talking about.

Events of the past few weeks where the attempted murder of a 17-year-old boy on Portobello Beach, and the tragic murder of 16-year-old Kayden Moy on Irvine Beach some 24 hours later brings me back to the subject as violence and knife crime once again makes headlines.

These horrors have brought out the predictable "break glass in case of emergency" speaking lines from all the usual suspects and has proved to expose just how neglected the simmering concerns on increasing levels of violence have been for far too long.

Sympathy as ever was not in short supply, for whatever other failings may exist, the basics of humanity were not amongst them. Hot on the heels of sympathy were the messages of reassurance that crime was falling (it may be but violence is not), that Scotland’s public health approach to violence was (once) world-leading, and that record investment in policing........

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