Grim Reading For Lothian and Borders Drug Raids

Bonnyrigg is not quite Baltimore and fans of David Simon's brilliant The Wire will find it hard to get excited about Lothian and Borders Police raids on drug dealers in Midlothian yesterday and today. Fair play to local commander, Chief Supt Terry Powell, a decent cop, who wants to clean up his backyard of local Barksdales.
But if Mr Powell's Operation Evolve really did take a year to plan, he must be sorely pissed that his force's media experts screwed up their bit of the plan within just one hour.
Elayne Grim and her team really excelled themselves with their half-cocked media briefing at Fettes HQ on Monday. Amateurish doesn't even begin to describe it. Newspaper and broadcasting hacks were summoned for a "secret" pre-raid briefing. It was such a big deal that a note had been sent to all media the previous Friday (surely a security risk putting information like that out four days in advance?).
But the media pack's enthusiasm was somewhat muted when they discovered it was same old, same old Operation Foil under a new guise.
Things quickly went down hill when it was revealed there were only eight places in the vehicles assigned for press but that was ok because another eight could go on Day 2 of the op. The penny didn't drop with La Grim that news editors would not be battering down her door to send hard pressed staff out on a drugs raid on Day 2 when events had already been reported in other media.
Better in the words of one journo present: "We were told it was going to be some of the biggest drug raids ever in the Lothians and everyone was understandably keen to go along. Unfortunately, the police had only arranged for two cars for press and with a press officer driving each, there was only space for eight others.
"Elayne Grimes helpfully left the room to let us 'sort it out ourselves' with remaining police press officers and it turned into a free-for-all."
It gets better. STV and the Beeb claimed four spots, PA was given two and Deadline agency got a reporter slot. That left one space between the Evening News, Sun, Record, Herald and Scotsman so what was La Grim's strategy for allocating media for this operation which had been a year in the planning? Wait for it, wait for it . . .
"We were reduced to putting names in a hat and drawing one out," said the source. "It was a bit messy. Four papers came along after being invited then went away empty-handed because there was not enough transport."
As it turned out the last spot went to the Evening News - that's right, the local Edinburgh daily which even the dimmest PR would acknowledge, should have been top of the list to ensure as much coverage of the raids in the Lothians as possible. The BBC, totally hacked off at the way they had been treated, didn't even bother taking up their places, so two spots went a-wasting.
So what kind of media coverage did this carefully planned operation receive? From what I can tell, The Scotsman ignored it, The Herald gave it a show and the two biggest selling tabs - the Daily Record gave it a couple of pars and The Sun stuck it on page 29, 6 pars. STV carried a piece and the Beeb carried agency copy.
The Evening News, which in days gone by would have splashed the raids with possibly a two page picture spread - er, put it on page 9.
As for the actual seizures? Nothing to write home about, £700 worth of cocaine, £5000 in cash and assorted substances - Dalkeith's wannabe D'Angelo's must be cacking themselves.
Another fine day at the office for Elayne and her team, where Evolution has yet to find currency.