We’re Doomed
Well I’m not as I’ll not be here but lots are.
Thousands of coppers are going to be out of a job if Lib Dems get their way. The latest idea to reclaim the streets, cure crime & generally solve the nation’s problems is for police officers to undergo yearly fitness tests. They want beat bobbies to pass an annual fitness check or get a desk job.
Lib Dem Home Affairs spokesman Chris Huhne said: “Frontline policemen (that’ll annoy lots of people) must be fit enough to do their job properly. Free gyms for officers & fitness tests will help ensure our police are a match for the yobs & criminals who blight our neighbourhoods.”
To be fair, I think they have a point. But I suspect that a great many officers, particularly those with longer service, would struggle to pass any kind of meaningful fitness test which would mean queues forming to cover all the desk jobs that aren’t available or re-employment at pie testing factories or somewhere.
It’s a shame that the chief officers haven’t had the same opinion. I can remember when most police stations had some form of mini-gym with multi-gyms & weights available. I even used to use one myself at my last but one, two & three nicks. The bosses decided they needed the space for filing police complaint forms or other such importance & have taken most of them away.
We used to get time off for representing the force at sports events, this was also taken away. There is little to no encouragement from the employers to keep their staff fit unless you happen to be on a firearms squad.
I haven’t had a fitness test since I left training school 30 years ago & the fitness training we did a couple of times a year during riot squad training was a pain for a day, but most people never did anything in between & still managed to pass the shield run 6 months later.
It’s a great idea in theory, I’ll be interested to watch developments from the luxury of my settee & a bag of chips if the Lib Dems ever get it implemented. (labour will probably steal the idea, spend millions advertising what a fantastic idea it is & then do bugger-all about it, anyway)
Andy Hart says:
I retired yesterday and the money is in the bank clearing as we speak! In my ‘old’ force ( I can say that now) fitness tests were required for PSU, Firearms and dog handling – the rest of us could try and claim the ‘doughnut eater of the year’ award if we wanted to. How long have you got left – it will pass extremely quickly, I promise!!
September 2nd, 2008 at 12:59 pm
200 says:
Andy,
congrats on the retirement, am around about the half year mark now and to be honest, the quicker it passes the better, my debit card is getting seriously itchy…
September 2nd, 2008 at 1:09 pm
Tony F says:
We had to do an annual fitness test. It was the only time I went near the Gym except when on duty dog, and had to lock up. My main role in the military was to fix broken aeroplanes, drink tea, and be shot at. As the enemy always buggered off immediately after shooting, shooting back blind (especially with the old SLR) was never a viable option as the collateral damage may well have been a little unacceptable for British Forces. I suspect if I were in the US military, the odd single aimed magazine would have been acceptable.
September 2nd, 2008 at 2:59 pm
James says:
It’s not entirely unreasonable. On the plus side as well it can’t hurt personally for coppers to be fit. There does seem to be a few that die of heart attacks every year, whether that’s above average or not though, I don’t know.
September 2nd, 2008 at 3:10 pm
TaxPayingFool says:
I’d just ignore it – the LibDems come up with all sort of weird ideas and know damn fine they’ll never be in power to implement them. It’s easy to talk the talk, but walking the walk is a little bit trickier.
September 2nd, 2008 at 4:17 pm
MetAnon says:
i dont have any real police experience yet – all i’ve done is roleplays and the like in training, but if officer safety taught me one thing it was that it pays to be fit. If we believe the media, we live in (and police) an increasingly violent world, the hard fact is- the fitter we are the better we can defend ourselves when it starts looking grim, yes people will complain but would they rather be dead
September 2nd, 2008 at 11:04 pm
Civ_In_The_City says:
But doesn`t Gordo rely on the other parties so he can nick their ideas, twist ‘em around a smidge, and try to spin them to as us a NuLabour wheeze?
September 2nd, 2008 at 11:17 pm
Inspector Gadget says:
Gym? What that?
September 4th, 2008 at 12:13 am
Dangerous says:
We have a treadmill at work which gets used by a few of the guys. However, it’s now been banned, probably not been passed as “safe for use”. Dangerous thing keeping fit!!
September 4th, 2008 at 10:50 pm
Plodnomore says:
There was a multigym at my last nick which was used fairly often by a fair few, but not all, of the officers stationed there. One day, I finished nights and thought I’d have the odd 30 minutes to wear off some of the tension. On the door was a large notice that due to Health and Safety requirements, only those who had undergone an ‘introductory training session’ with the Force Fitness Instructor could the multigym be used. There followed the usual official declaration that “XXXXXXXXXXX Force is committed to…., etc, etc”.
Now the FFI worked at HQ, was extremely busy setting up personal training programmes for senior officers at HQ and for playing squash with the Chief during the lunch hour so the chance of him coming out to poxy little divisions for ‘introductory training sessions’ was as likely as Mylene Klass calling me up and telling me she needed to bear my babies. Despite, emails, phione calls and personal visits to the FFI, no sessions took place and for the next 3 months, the door remained locked and then I left. Godness knows what happened to it.
September 6th, 2008 at 9:16 pm
Southernbobby says:
Keeping a reasonable level of fitness is important in any walk of life. Free gyms = excellent idea. However I would suggest that to keep up with a chav in his/her latest designer chav wear while wearing helmet, body armour utility belt and size10 doc martins would be next to impossible even for the fastest runners amongst us.
September 6th, 2008 at 11:05 pm