Personally, I think that if anyone is serious about this issue, we might as well bite the bullet and think about a national Police force. It’s a terrible idea in one respect because it will give the Home Office what it has always wanted, namely unquestioned control of the Babylon. But that said, the idea that CC’s and Police Authorities still have any control over their priorities is just laughable. It would have the advantage that we could integrate our intelligence and make economies of scale.

The notion of local priorities also seems to be a bit suspect. If you drill down to the local meetings which Neighbourhood Officers have to attend (at least round my way), what is it people (albeit not necessarily representative) insist are the priorities. People speeding and bins being left on the pavement several days after collection day. Surveys have also demonstrated that what the man on the Clapham omnibus wants is lots of officers on foot patrol. There is a bizarre inability to accept that an officer walking up and down your road is not in a position to respond to a report of youths snatching an old lady’s hand-bag on the other side of town sufficiently quickly to catch the little turds. Or that a vast amount of crime is committed by a relatively few individuals, who are only caught by officers doing the very opposite of high profile, visible policing. In fact, when it comes to it, I think this whole “local priorities” argument is a bit of a smoke screen. If the question were put honestly, I would imagine that the local priority, whether you live in Hampstead, Govan, Truro or South Shields would be the same. I want to be able to walk around my area at any time of day or night without being afraid. When I go home, I want the things I left there to still be there. The rest is just window dressing.

The jury is still out.

But then along comes the force mergers issue again, all forces feeling the squeeze of government short-changing. With the bolt already shot where is the money going to come from this time.

That`s one force that has it`s merger options severely hampered, and we all know what sort of results a half-arsed effort gets you.

Still, work continues, even if nothing can come of it which Chief would be daft enough to look like he`s not trying to please the government of the day.

Big bonuses depend on toeing the (current) party political line.

Ring, ring. All change for Conservative Central!!

But realistically, could it work? I don’t mean could it be made to work, but could it actually work?

Yorkshiremen can briefly entertain the dual fancy of economies of scale combined with the demise of a Regional Mafia.