Good news for British bobbies: you are about to get a real-terms pay rise. Yes, that is right: Yvette Cooper has reportedly wrung the change out of Rachel Reeves, amid some eleventh-hour pay negotiations ahead of Wednesday’s spending review. But while few would begrudge those working hard some extra cash, Mr S is not alone in wondering whether the boys in blue really are spending all their sums effectively.

For some coppers, it seems, are less interested in being police constables and more rather concerned with political correctness. A spate of stories have appeared in the papers recently, in which overzealous officers pitch up at mild-mannered citizens’ homes. Examples include Telegraph writer Allison Pearson, visited by Essex Police on Remembrance Day, and journalist Maxie Allen who

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