SNP caught lying

ALEX Salmond was yesterday accused of backtracking on a key SNP pledge to recruit 1,000 new police officers.

The SNP fought the Scottish elections promising the extra officers but, in the parliament yesterday, Mr Salmond would only commit to "the equivalent of" 1,000 new officers - leading to opposition claims of a U-turn.

The First Minister also came under attack over the renewal of Edinburgh schools. Labour had insisted they would have been rebuilt by the previous administration but claimed these plans had been ditched by the SNP.

The row over the SNP's plans for the police erupted because of a change in the party's stated policy. In April, the SNP manifesto promised "1,000 more police" but, by the time the SNP took power, that had changed to "the equivalent of 1,000 new police officers".

At First Minister's questions yesterday, both Annabel Goldie, the Scottish Tory leader, and Nicol Stephen, the Scottish Liberal Democrat leader, asked if the SNP would actually recruit 1,000 new officers or whether the Scottish Government would merely move officers from back-room duties to frontline operations, without recruiting the numbers promised.

Mr Stephen claimed the SNP's promise had become "rebadging, renaming or reshuffling existing police".

And he added: "They're not new or additional. Is this the biggest backtrack the First Minister has yet devised?"

It looks like people of Scotland are being lied to by a party that is betraying them at any given opportunity. They were promised 1000 new police by the SNP but now that the election is over they have decided that they don’t need to do that anymore. They are even more shameless than Labour.