Good news for Britain’s thieves: Despite what you may have heard in a new ad, police aren’t really spending 80 percent of time “on the beat in your area.” The ad, part of a campaign by the U.K.’s top policing organization, the Home Office, has been ordered off the air by the U.K. Advertising Standards Authority. Always a persnickety bunch, the watchdog group says the ad’s 80 percent figure makes it sound like the nation’s 140,000 police are constantly on the streets, when in fact the number applies only to the department’s 13,500 neighborhood constables and 16,000 community support officers. I’d say the Home Office is right to question this ruling. Is there really anyone out there who thinks every police officer walks the beat—even the officers, lab techs and evidence librarians? At the very least, the folks at Home Office can feel they’re in good company. They can go have a commiserative beer with the porn promoters, knife wielders and Marmite makers.
—Posted by David Griner