Time to arrest this high-handed behaviour

n HIS well-judged victory speech after the party’s historic victory in May, Alex Salmond said the SNP might have been poised to become Scotland’s first majority government, but he maintained it “did not have a monopoly on wisdom” when it came to policies to take Scotland forward.

Some four months on and there is evidence the SNP is not fulfilling this post-election promise to consult and be constructive as it exploits the unprecedented power which winning an outright majority at Holyrood has conferred upon it. The reform of the Scottish police service is a case in point. Tomorrow the local authority umbrella body, Cosla, in conjunction with this newspaper, holds a conference on calls for a single police force for Scotland. Cosla is against the idea, arguing one force would lack of accountability and there would be too much centralisation of power. Others, including this paper as it happens, take a different view.

However, differences of view are not the point. What is concerning is that the Scottish Government, which seems close to backing a single force, has declined to send a minister or even a civil servant to the conference to make the case to an audience of people who have considerable knowledge and deserve to be consulted. The fear is if it acts like this on police reform, the SNP government will act in the same high-handed manner on other controversial issues and ministers will no longer feel obliged to make the case for change. Perhaps Mr Salmond has decided that an overall majority does confer a monopoly of wisdom?