According to Ms Murray, the police officers acknowledged that she had not committed any crime – but said, “We need to speak to you to ascertain what your thinking was” behind the statement she’d tweeted. Ms Murray said she was shocked by the experience. “I don’t believe anyone who has read that statement could view it as hateful,” she said.
Many people in Scotland will understandably be troubled by this story, and fear that their freedom of speech is under threat. On the other hand, though, there is a clear upside.
After all, the story suggests that the Scottish government has done an absolutely tremendous job of tackling serious crime. Because evidently, Scotland now has so few murders, muggings, robberies, gangs and drug problems that the Scottish police have nothing left to do except to trudge aimlessly around, chatting to innocent members of the public about their tweets.
How wonderful it must be to live in this crime-free paradise. Unless, I suppose, you’re a Scottish police officer. Because, if there is no longer any real crime for them to tackle, the Scottish public may start to ask whether there is any need to have police officers at all. Why should the tax-payer have to fund officers’ salaries, if the only thing the police have to do all day is scroll listlessly through social media, on the off-chance that a member of the public has expressed an unfashionable opinion?
Perhaps, ahead of the next Holyrood elections, the Scottish Tories could pledge to abolish the entire Scottish police force, and use the money saved to give everyone in Scotland a tax cut. This would not only help to tackle the cost of living crisis, but reward the public for being so immaculately law-abiding.
Whatever happens, those of us who live in England or Wales can only look on in envy. Down here, we still have lots of crime. So much crime, in fact, that our police can’t cope. According to a report, last year they managed to solve only five per cent of burglaries.
The solution is clear. If you live in England or Wales, and you’ve just been burgled, don’t bother ringing the local police. Ring the Scottish police, and ask them to investigate instead. They’ll be grateful just to have something to do for once. Admittedly, it may take them a while to drive down from Scotland. But better late than never.
A shocking Twist
Yet another university has placed a trigger warning on a classic work of literature, in order to spare the feelings of its more sensitive undergraduates. This time the work in question is Oliver Twist. Staff at Royal Holloway, the University of London, have warned students that Dickens’s novel contains “child abuse”, “domestic violence” and “racial prejudice”.
It’s an ever-growing trend. Other universities have added trigger warnings to Great Expectations, Jane Eyre, Nineteen Eighty-Four – and even, remarkably, Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone.
It may seem peculiar to place a trigger warning on a book written for children. But no doubt the time will come when all children’s books have them. Readers will be warned that The Ugly Duckling contains depictions of body dysmorphic disorder, Rapunzel contains scenes of false imprisonment, and The Very Hungry Caterpillar contains binge-eating.
You never know what might upset someone. Perhaps, to be on the safe side, it would be best to discourage the young from reading at all.
