NICOLA Sturgeon has been urged to “follow Boris’s lead” by pledging to use the knock-on £100 million windfall - from the Tory frontrunner’s pledge to create 20,000 new police posts south of the border - to create nearly 2,000 officers in Scotland.
Mr Johnson, in his latest pledge to woo over Conservative members, said his plan for 20,000 more bobbies on the beat in England and Wales would reverse the decline in numbers since 2010 and increase the total number to more than 140,000 by 2022.
READ MORE: 'Vulgar' English nationalism blamed for Scottish independence
“Soaring crime levels are destroying lives across the country and we urgently need to tackle this,” declared the former London Mayor.
“To keep our streets safe and cut crime, we need to continue to give the police the tools they need and crucially we need to increase the physical presence of police on our streets. That’s why I will be increasing police numbers by 20,000. More police on our streets means more people are kept safe.”
He added: “We want to make sure we keep the number of police officers high and we need to keep visible frontline policing. That’s what we did in London and that’s what I want to in the whole of the UK to cut crime and keep people safe.”
Colin Clark, the Conservative MP for Gordon, who is supporting Mr Johnson’s campaign, said: “This announcement goes to show how in touch Boris is with the concerns of people across the UK.
“I hope now that the SNP welcome Boris’s strong announcement with one of their own. The SNP should follow Boris’s lead. The extra money through the Barnett Formula would mean almost 2,000 more officers pounding the beat in Scotland.”
READ MORE: Citizens Assembly hit by recruitment delay amid Unionist calls for boycott
Meanwhile, the BBC announced that Andrew Neil would conduct two consecutive half-hour interviews with the candidates in a special programme at 7pm on BBC One on Friday July 12.
Fran Unsworth, the Director of BBC News, said: “Andrew Neil is one of the best political interviewers on television.
“He’ll be questioning the two candidates on behalf of audiences up and down the country, including the Conservative Party members who are voting for their next leader. Their decision will, of course, affect all of us, so it’s strongly in the public interest that we put the two candidates and their policy ambitions to the test.”
Tomorrow, the two candidates will take part in the party’s Scottish hustings in Perth.
Earlier, Jeremy Hunt shared a picture of an automated email he had received from the Johnson campaign, asking him for support for his campaign.
"Well this is awkward...definitely didn't sign up to this mailing list," he tweeted.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereLast Updated:
Report this comment Cancel