The Conservatives are committed to directly-elected political figures controlling police forces around the country, although the details are still being drawn up ahead of next year’s General Election—which is why most of us, including myself, didn’t know anything about this until now. And that’s only because Sir Hugh Orde, the head of the police professional body, the Association of Chief Police Officers (Acpo), has warned that chief constables may resign if a Tory government tries to place forces under local political control. He has said colleagues would resist being told how to protect the public by locally-elected leaders.

The right-wing popular press, busy bedevilling the Prime Minister for having a visual disability and not very good handwriting, and his deputy for (allegedly) illegally using her mobile phone while driving (which you can be sure many Sun and Mail and Torygraph readers do all the time) and then crashing into an unoccupied parked car, hasn’t bothered to focus on this trivial detail of actual policy. The majority of the ever-shrinking minority of people who are intelligent enough to use their votes, but not necessarily intelligent enough to assess party policies before casting those votes, know next to nothing about Tory plans.

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