Alex Salmond yesterday joined the fierce war of words between Westminster and Holyrood ministers over the use of stop-and-search powers by British Transport Police.
The First Minister backed his Justice Secretary, Kenny MacAskill, who came under criticism from the UK transport minister who has responsibility for the force that polices the rail network in Britain.
Last weekend, Mr MacAskill complained that the British Transport Police (BTP) threaten community relations with extensive use of the stop and search powers since the terror attack on Glasgow Airport in June, saying they were following a "diktat from London".
Nearly 15,000 checks have been carried out at rail stations, while the eight Scottish-based forces have chosen to use the powers fewer than 150 times in nearly a year. Of the BTP checks, the police believe 12% were on people from ethnic minorities, compared with a 2% share of the population.
That provoked the strongest attack on the SNP government from a Whitehall minister. Tom Harris, who is Labour MP for Glasgow South, said the Scottish Justice Secretary had been "cynical and irresponsible".
In a letter to Mr MacAskill, he said it was "unacceptable" to base his comments on hearsay without discussing it with the BTP.
"Kenny MacAskill is playing politics with anti-terrorism operations," Mr Harris said.
The SNP came under attack from Conservatives and LibDems for making a political controversy out of policing. David McLetchie, the former Scottish Tory leader, said the SNP should give "full support to all police forces rather than sitting, carping and undermining them from the sidelines".
Mr Salmond told MSPs: "It is entirely appropriate that the Cabinet Secretary should question these matters in terms of the public interest." He turned on Mr Harris for responding through a press release: "It is inappropriate to conduct debates in that fashion."
Today, Mr Harris is scheduled to be in Glasgow on patrol with the BTP.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article