Congratulations to Thames Valley Police for spending more than any other force on propaganda.

I was wondering how they would top the lavish refurbishment of Newbury's police cells, covering up the murder of David Kelly or the Chief Constable getting us to pay for her party dresses, but I knew they wouldn't let me down.

The publishing of the information is a Government requirement. The cost quoted is only for the actual publishing, not the staff costs of gathering and collating. Interesting that some areas meet the requirement via different methods than an individual-to-locality booklet. TVP is the largest non-metropolitan police service/force, so it would likely have to be in the upper reaches of a publication method. It also suffers a high number of individual LAs due to being a three-county service.
I'd gladly go without the booklet myself,
Not sure how they 'covered up' the David Kelly death as it was one of the TVP DCs who first queried the status of the 'scene'.
Newbury Police cells were falling so far behind the Home Office standard they would have fallen out of use. The community would then have made a fuss about prisoners having to be taken to Reading/Lower Earley - the mileage, lost time, etc......
The CCs expenses? Shout loud and often!!!!

Yes and yet again the little people who are required to deliver HMG's demands goo off message. 'Cells to the Home Office Standards'. Ha Ha Ha - presumably floral wall paper and comfy chairs... Any role where accountability is split between several heads is a licence to extract money. The best chance of getting to grips with this was to make Chief Constables properly accountable so thanks LibDem Lords, you've done it again!

Whatever the requirement is it is still a waste of money. That money could be put to better use, as the article points out. More Police officers. And does that propaganda really do any good? Other than trying to make the police look good? The only way to achieve a good light would be to take on board the citizens concerns, try to eliminate Anti social behaviour etc.

Consider the recent TVP trumpet about the number of prisoners taken by the 'Roads Policing Proactive' team. Someone should ask how that wonderful number compares with previous years.........
'The public' want to see more 'Traffic' policing. The number of marked 'Traffic' patrols diminish year on year, and their 'targets' are less and less to do with driver standards....

More? no thanks, more coppers = more waste. The ones we have are terrible, what we need is a better recruitment and training programme.

I see Cambridgeshire have local government pubs. Sounds a good place to live.

I'm not sure it is the police getting worse, more that the villains are getting 'more intelligent'. We also don't have the prison space for the law breakers, let alone the appropriate sentencing to keep them their, but that isn't the police's fault.

I respectfully disagree. Coppers now all seem to be the school bully type, joining up for the power and the chance to be above the law themselves. The community minded people who join to make a difference are a lot fewer and further between than they used to be.

You may disagree, but I'd say the police are a lot more even handed than they used to be, when they were in practical terms, a 'firm'.

I suspect many would take 'even handed' to mean soft. To some extent, I can understand the problem. For the ordinary copper, the operation today is so governed by crackpot social theories that trying to take a common sense approach is well nigh impossible. Then, even if you do, the Criminal Justice system is so weak and inept any effort you might have put in is wasted. So being a copper these days is just the same as being the Security guy by the front door in Sainsbury's - just a uniform. Can you then blame them for 'just doing a job'?....and the real coppers don't even get staff discount!

I can't really argue with that.

Yes you can. Just how much will it cost? Get an intelligent and efficient Police service, that will push the cost of criminal justice through the roof! Just going for motorists doesn't require retraining and the fines means it pays for itself. You see the Police is just like any other business - which is why a few months back one of the Chief Constables said the Police should refer to offenders as customers. And still the LibDems want to keep them from public accountability.

TVP version of events & Dr David Kelly's tragic death may have more mileage to come following this
revelation

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/851...elly-death.html