We were all warned but we didn't listen.

When Labour, Conservatives and eventually the SNP came to support a single police force, a few solitary liberal voices sounded a note of caution. The new service, they said, could become a political football. They were right. And they made sure they were right - a cynic might suggest - by giving the that new ball as many political kickings as they could. And fair enough. Nobody is above criticism. And a national police service - like it or not - is a political beast.

But I think we should start to be worried about the tone of some of the politics around Scottish justice.Opposition politicians have already dialled their shrill up to ear-splitting levels. Chief Constable Sir Stephen House has said he will retire early.

Sir Stephen House

But in recent weeks the language has changed. There is now a clear and, in my view, completely unjustifiable innuendo of political partisanship on the part of both the police and the Crown.

It makes me a little uneasy.

Take Brian Wilson. This former MP and minister has enviable experience of public life in Scotland and the UK. He has made - and lived with the consequences of - some very hard decisions. He knows how government and policing works.

This week he tweeted something that I thought was quite remarkable. Andrew Neil, the broadcaster, was flagging up the case of SNP MP Michelle Thomson, who had just come under investigation, to English media.

Mr Wilson responded to Mr Neil. He wanted the press to ask most questions on "why Scottish Gov's Lord Advocate and SNP's Police Scotland took no action for 18 months till headlines forced them into it."

@afneil And also why Scottish Gov's Lord Advocate and SNP's Police Scotland took no action for 18 months till headlines forced them into it. — Brian Wilson (@BrianWilson1967) September 29, 2015

The "Scottish Government's Lord Advocate"? The "SNP's Police Scotland"? Mr Wilson isn't the first to use this formula. But he is the most senior. Can unsubstantiated allegations of partisan policing and prosecution really be made so lightly? Calum Steele, the general secretary of the Scottish Police Federation, wasn't impressed. His reaction to Mr Wilson's tweet? "Shameless politicisation for its own sake."

Police Scotland

Was the shouty politics around policing inevitable? Possibly. And not just because of the post-referendum bile poisoning Holyrood.

For decades Scottish policing has done its own things - often good, sometimes not so good - without much political scrutiny.

Mr Wilson, in trying to justify his Twitter gaffe, criticised the SNP for replacing the old regional police boards.

My view - as someone unfortunate enough to have sat through their meetings - is that such boards were not fit for purpose.

The new national arrangements, still far from perfect, are better. Policing isn't feeling the heat because of a lack of scrutiny; it is feeling the heat because of new scrutiny.

In the spotlight are what senior officers call "adverse events". There have been a few recently, including the horrific M9 blunder. But adverse events aren't new. Their politicalisation is.

So much so that senior English officers - facing more serious policing problems than Scotland - have picked up their ears.

Last week Graeme Pearson, a one-time Scottish policing legend and now a highly effective Labour spokesman, called for Justice Secretary Michael Matheson to be "hands-on" after a blunder by a rookie cop in a missing person case. His point? That civilian watchdogs are proving ineffective and SNP ministers must take some responsibility. But do we really want hands-on politicians? Then we really might have "the SNP's Police Scotland".

Graeme Pearson