JOHN INNES

AN MSP has accused Scottish police of inciting violence at this summer's G8 summit in Gleneagles by adopting a "come on if you think you're hard enough" attitude.

The SNP's Roseanna Cunningham said the scale of the security operation was sending out the wrong message.

Up to 10,000 police officers will be called in for the summit, being held in Perthshire in July, in an operation likely to cost tens of millions of pounds.

During a G8 debate in the Scottish Parliament, Ms Cunningham, the MSP for Perth, said: "We need to uphold Scotland's tradition of peaceful protest and there is actually a real danger that all the talk of armed police, surface-to-air missiles and 'holding compounds' . . . will make the fears of violence, understandable after Genoa and Seattle, a self-fulfilling prophecy.

"Some of it looks suspiciously like the police effectively saying, 'Come on if you think you're hard enough'."

Last night the police officer in charge of G8 security expressed his dismay at the MSP's claims.

John Vine, the Chief Constable of Tayside Police, said: "I'm disappointed that's been said and it's a misrepresentation of anything we've said in Tayside Police.

"Our policing style will be very much community-based. But we have to have contingencies for more violent protests and I have to weigh up the priorities of the world leaders, safeguarding the rights of local inhabitants to go about their business and facilitate lawful protest."