Fat Blue Line

‘REMEMBER the famous police recruitment poster – ”If you can read this, you’re overqualified”?

Police relax height requirement (ACTUAL SIZE)

Well, the Mail say there’s a new recruitment drive on the beat and it’s calling for the short-sighted and unfit to join the soon-to-be portly blue line.

The exam that tests if someone is physically up to the rigours of being a copper is to be made easier.

While 95 per cent of men who take the test pass, only 51 per cent of woman tested make the grade.

And since the police want more women in the force than the current 18 per cent of all officers who are female, the entrance exam is to become easier.

So out goes the ”speed and agility” section, where a wannabe police person runs ”slalom-style” around a series of cones in 27 seconds or less – perhaps wailing ”wee-waa” as they go.

But other modules remain in place, including being able to squeeze a neck-shaped monitor to achieve a ”grip strength” of 32 kilos.

Police will also be expected to perform the vital skill of pushing and pulling a rowing machine.

Anyone caught rowing the machine will be immediately taken outside, upstairs and installed as the new head of CID.

But still there are those against the scheme. People like Shadow Home Secretary Oliver Letwin, who asks: ”Are we to imagine that criminals are going to oblige by becoming less fit as well?”

The simple answer to that is yes.

‘

Posted: 21st, May 2003 | In: Tabloids Comment | TrackBack | Permalink