For a police force to be accepted and respected by a population and if the public’s cooperation is needed to prevent crime, then that police force should not be in any way political. If a police force swings one way politically then it will lose the support of those members of the public who don’t agree with that particular political position.

If a police force wants to be supported by the public and get the cooperation of the public then they need to be strictly apolitical. This is because in the British policing system the police are seen or rather should be seen as ‘citizens in uniform’ who are entrusted with certain powers that are exercised for the benefit of the whole community. A problem arises when police forces become politicised and direct resources not to the entirety of the community but only to sections of it. This creates a situation where the police are not seen as ‘citizens in uniform’ and thereby part of ‘us’ but separate from the community and considered as ‘them’ or outside the community.

Cheshire Police seems not have learned the lesson that for policing to be effective, fair and honest, politics must be eschewed. Cheshire Police have decided that rather than improve services to all Cheshire’s residents what they will do is carry out a blatantly political policy of painting some police vehicles in rainbow colours in order to encourage people from the LGB and T communities to report social media comments that they find ‘offensive’.

I don’t think that Cheshire Police have really thought through what impression such an action gives to the public. It gives the impression, whether warranted or unwarranted, among the wider community that the police do not care about them and only care about certain groups. People in the wider community start to ask questions like ‘if they can do that why can’t they deal with my burglary’? Blatantly political actions such as focussing resources onto one particular group encourages members of other groups to feel ‘left out’ and not a priority for the police forces that they fund via their taxes.

I’m not even sure that this course of action by Cheshire Police even does anything positive for those with minority sexualities. We have equal rights for those who are same sex or bisexually attracted. There’s no reason, unlike in the now distant past, for such people to feel any fear of the police. I don’t know of any Gay or Bi person of my acquaintance who would not contact the police if they were attacked for fear that they would be criminalised or discriminated against for who they are. It just doesn’t happen. The type of police that the Tom Robinson Band sung about in 1978 no longer exist. They don’t raid gay pubs or other venues just because the punters who attend them are gay, that really is a thing of the past now.

Painting police vehicles in rainbow colours is to be quite frank patronising. It’s really not needed. It treats gay people as imbeciles who need to have their hands held over everything. Also the whole premise of this campaign, to get people to report opinions they find ‘offensive’ is also pretty sinister. It’s painting the police as censors and politically motivated censors at that.

Writing for the Telegraph but quoted by the Daily Mail Harry Miller, the former police officer and founder of the Fair Cop group, summed up what was wrong with Cheshire Police’s policy when he said: ‘We don’t see the Met with special cars for knife crime, even though the number of stabbings in London is appalling. ‘The problem is that the second that you see a rainbow car, you know that it is a police force that has made its mind up about some very contentious issues. 

‘You no longer see a police car or a police officer who is there to support everyone, from all political persuasions, without fear or favour.

‘They have literally tied their colours to the mast and painted their cars with their political leanings.’ 

Mr Miller is correct. Painting police vehicles in rainbow colours does signify that the force in question has taken up a political position. He’s also correct when he says that seeing an officer in such a vehicle does not give the impression that the officer is there for everyone who may need them.“

In my view, civilised countries require police forces that treat everyone the same, that have no political bias and which operate without fear or favour. When police forces step away from that ideal, they lose the support of the public and become somewhat of a laughing stock. More importantly when the police lose the respect and support of the public as a whole because they’ve thrown their lot in with heavily politically active minority groups, it makes the police’s job that much harder. This is because they may find that those who previously may well have enthusiastically helped the police, out of disgust at the politicisation may no longer do so.