We are all acquainted with the rather caricatural descriptions of police officers in films, novels, TV gags etc depicting bumbling bobbies, plodding PCs, or even worse.

That may apply to foreign forces, but that’s their problem anyway, and meanwhile we all know that, caricatures apart, that they generally have high operational standards and get their results.

But what is happening here is turning the Force into the butt of jokes, and ludicrous is not a word we should associate with police.

We have however to get the whole picture first.

It is ludicrous that, on any change of government, roughly half the force withdraws, and an almost equivalent number comes in. No other country this side of the upright world does this, not even the US where police officials are elected and appointed politically. Consider the wheelings and dealings that must take place on the eve of every election, what people get promised and what they demand.

We have recently seen an influx of ‘returnees’ and unfortunately we have seen a photo of an obese policeman on the scene of an accident. We do not want to personalise the matter but we can surely ask: were these ‘returnees’ given a test, a physical and any training at all? This brings to mind the repeated PN claims that the Police Academy has stopped functioning as it used to be and the rather blustery retort about the building of the Academy as if stones and mortar have anything to do.

In previous years, the Force was maybe starved of adequate investments, which resulted not just in decrepit police stations untouched for decades but in not enough investment in the tools of the trade. At the same time, one can still meet half the Force at the Law Courts any morning, and the Police have now retaken their role policing the traffic.

Then we have the other factor: the spate of promotions given some months ago that resulted in the local Force getting an even heavier top-heavy Force than the Metropolitan Force of London.

All this comes from one and the same source: as in many other aspects of national life, everything has become clientelised and, surely not for the first time, being on the winning side can deliver a hefty bonus,regardless of your abilities or lack of.

The situation is, if anything, worse in the Armed Force where what used to work has been mindlessly dismantled just to give a leg-up to one of the many who doubtlessly claimed they were treated unfairly in previous promotion exercises – and who is to say they were not right.

All in all, this is, and has long been, a national disgrace. It is a pity things are not any better or getting any better. It is a worse pity they have taken a turn to the worse.

Unless there is a national consensus on choosing the right people for their abilities, not for their party loyalty, and unless there is a cast-iron agreement among gentlemen about not promising career paths and other gifts to people for partisan reasons (and we seriously do not see this happening) there is no hope of any improvement in the coming future.

Meanwhile, our advice to the fat bobby in the picture is: get a life and start dieting. After all, this is World Obesity Day.