Scarily stupid Police Scotland campaign deserves a real monstering

I don’t doubt the sincerity of the police in combating this pestilence which has made Scotland the most hate-filled, savage and savagely hate-filled country in the world. I have questions, however. 

The police’s depiction of the “Hate Monster” – chosen after an art competition among primary schools across west central Scotland – looks very much to me like a furious Weetabix biscuit. Is this really the message we want to be sending out to Scotland’s most detestable communities? 

These neighbourhoods are already disfigured by Buckfast-fuelled hatred for their fellow citizens. The last thing they need is to be depicted by a Weetabix biscuit. I bow to no-one in my respect for this stalwart breakfast comestible.

Everyone knows, though, that it has a high sugar content and could make jaggy communities living on the edge even more unpredictable. 

Police Scotland seem to be in no doubt who is mainly responsible for Scotland’s epidemic of hatred. According to them, “young men aged 18-30 are most likely to commit hate crime, particularly those from socially excluded communities who are heavily influenced by their peers”.

Surely, if what they claim is true, the time has now come for the police and the Scottish Government to take sterner action against this sinister cohort than making them look like breakfast cereals? 

It can’t have escaped their attention that in the same week that Police Scotland were asking us to be vigilant for Hate Monsters the new drugs deaths totals were being issued by the government. These showed yet another sharp increase in the number of Scots dying from drug addiction. 

And, as usual, a disproportionately high number of these deaths are among the deprived and depraved hate monsters of working-class communities. It’s clear that the Scottish Government’s drug addiction strategy isn’t working. 

So, I think the money should be targeted instead at stopping all these young men turning into Hate Monsters. The message from the government and Police Scotland should ring out loud and clear: it doesn’t matter if you die of heroin addiction, better if you go to your grave purged of all that hatred that’s bringing Scotland down. 
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Thus middle Scotland could rest easy knowing that while these young men are turning into husks on heroin and street valium at least they’ll have stopped saying bad things to us. 

Scary strategy 
IN A spirit of goodwill towards Police Scotland, I feel I ought to point out some of the pitfalls of their Hate Monster strategy. 

The police have said that “for recording purposes, the perception of the victim or any other person is the defining factor in determining whether an incident is a hate incident or in recognising the malice element of their crime”.

Surely, unless they have independently verified data to back up their claims, poor young white men living in edgy neighbourhoods might perceive that they are being victimised on account of social factors outwith their control. 

There you are going about your normal day drinking Dragon Soop, eating pot noodles, being white, and shooting up with your pals later on with the drill music turned up to 11. 

And the next day you’re being targeted by the cops creeping around the streets with sophisticated listening devices to make sure you’re all minding your language. It must have occurred to them that bad actors and opportunists will emerge from the Hate Monster communities and seek to exploit the new hate laws. 

There will be queues forming outside all the known sex shops and swinging clubs to make complaints against the actual police for calling them Hate Monsters and subjecting them to cruel and unusual public humiliation. 

I’d maybe get the police some diversity training aimed at showing them how to approach the young Possil Hate Monsters in a non-aggressive manner. Perhaps they could get the primary school which made the angry Weetabix artwork to provide a lexicon of non-threatening phrases that they use in these places. 
 
On the offensive
INDEED, I’ve sought advice from a friend who has lived experience of dodgy working-class areas known to harbour Hate Monsters. Based on his reports, I’ve compiled a list of peer-reviewed and neutral-sounding words and phrases that won’t offend the locals.
“Ho, big man/wee man, we come in peace and mean you no harm.”

“That was a massive result for St Roch’s the other night. Were you at the game?”

“I could fair go a wee slug of that Irn-Brew.”

“Did you see the state of thon Russian elections? That president Putin gets right on my tits.”

“I know a lot of people think Trump is a pure fanny. But sometimes I think he talks a lot of sense.”

Reigning men
I’D also be inclined to customise Police Scotland’s Hate Monster description specifically for some of the SNP’s career wing. 

How about something along these lines?

“We know that men aged 18-60 in the political arena are most likely to commit hate crimes against women, particularly those from entitled, university-educated backgrounds who are heavily influenced by the social 
and cultural outlook of their elected peers. 

“They may have deep-rooted feelings of inadequacy caused by being socially and economically disadvantaged by intelligent women defending their sex-based rights, combined with ideas about white-male entitlement.”

As always, I offer all of this in a spirit of civic goodwill and social responsibility.