Its all about the image

Having recently been assigned a duty involving potential large scale disorder with several pieces of good quality "intelligence" to suggest that gangs of feral youths were descending upon our area to fight it out with knives, machetes and various other sharp pointy things with the intention of dismember each other due to a lack of respect shown by one gang to another . (I say put them all in a cage and let them fight it out and put it on setanta sports on pay-per-view but apparently that's not in the ACPO manual)

For such a duty, with the aforementioned "intel" you would expect a level of protection for the police officers expected to deal with this lot of aggressive single celled cromags.

No.

Apparently, The kit worn by police for public order duties is considered to confrontational and intimidating for the general public and the carrying of long batons gives out the wrong impression by my university educated, high potential development schemed senior managers.

Its not like we WANT to fight a gang of 100+ idiots with knives or go out with logos like above painted on our helmets

You will no doubt be ecstatic to know that there was only a few stabbings, thirteen knife point robberies and numerous assaults.

I looked bloody smart in my shirt and tie though

Sleeping safely in your beds

You will no doubt be pleased to know that the area in which I work incorporates parts of the M25,M23 and A3 roads and has several large town centers and part of England's largest airport. It has approximately 1 million residents which makes it the most densely populated area outside of greater London.

Imagine if I told you that at certain times during last week there was exactly twenty response officers covering this entire area. (640 square miles)

Don't get me wrong there are safer neighbourhood teams and PCSO's on duty (you know this because the forces electricity bill goes up with all the station kettles getting boiled)

That's 1 response officer for every 50,000 residents !

This part of a workforce modernisation programme that requires less response officers than previous levels and has changed the grading and type of jobs police will now attend and this is part of a "ambitious" vision to modernise the police according to my cheif constable...

Apparently our response teams are at full strenght according to out senior managment team so I will leave you with these edited excerpts little gem of an ICAD that came in to our control room a while ago at a very affluent part of leafy ruralshire

Caller: There is a large rave taking place near my address with approximately 100 people with very loud music and I want it shut down.

Control room: Are there any threats of violence or damage that you can see

Caller: No but I want police here to shut this party down as I can't sleep

Control room: Sir, as part of ***** police new policy we do not attend noisey parties and its a matter for environmental health, would you like their number?

To cut this short, police did attend some three hours later when it the caller, after several telephone converstions with the control room was identified as no other that our very own chief Constable.

You simply couldn't make it up.