Emergency Response

Since the incident at Glasgow Airport last week there has been an assessment of the response to the attack. Members of the public and airport staff have been justifiably praised for stepping in to help police responding to the attack.

For me though the actions of the emergency services deserve credit. I`ve seen a couple of interviews with police officers who were involved who said ‘just doing my job’. In my view tackling failed flaming terrorists is above and beyond the call of duty. From the firefighters, through to the police and including the paramedics I think they put in a sterling shift and that should be recognised.

The emergency services can get a bit of a hard time sometimes; hopefully their response in Glasgow will be remembered by those looking to have a dig in the future.

Many had questioned before the events how the Brown-Salmond relationship would be. From the off this was a stern test. What we saw was on both-sides of the constitutional divide an overriding pragmatism to deal with the incident and its aftermath.

After it became clear that there was a direct link between the incidents in Glasgow and London it was obvious that the surest way to bring the perpetrators of these incidents to justice was to have a single case brought forward.

The two incidents took place in two different legal jurisdictions but the initial incident took place in London and the bulk of the suspects were arrested in England. In the interests of getting a conviction I think it was entirely sensible that the perpetrators arrested in Scotland be transferred to London for trial in this case. Lord Advocate Elish Angiolini has received stick from some quarters over this decision – quite wrongly in my view.

Angiolini’s overriding priority has to be making sure that the terror suspects are brought to justice and if the best way of doing that is as part of a larger single trial in England then so be it. Also it doesn’t prevent a future trial in Scotland – that simply may not be necessary though.

I’m confident that had the incidents in London taken place elsewhere, Paris for instance, then the Lord Advocate would have made the same judgment to ensure conviction.