I despair of PC PCs

AS A retired police officer with more than 30 years’ service, I’ve never felt more embarrassed by association than I did after reading of male officers in nail varnish and high heels.

I served in one of the forces involved, but unfortunately this kind of stupidity is not unique to them.

The majority of rank- and- file officers want to get on with a very difficult job, but unfortunately there is an element who care only for their own promotion prospects — and the more politically correct they can appear, the better their Cv will look.

The people who dream up these ridiculous schemes do not have to go out on the streets to face the ridicule of the public.

Name and address supplied. THE obsession with political correctness shows there is something wrong with the leadership of our once admired police service. The rot set in with the amalgamations of forces and the recruitment of men and women from universities.

You might have a degree in media studies or Egyptology, but does that mean you have common sense?

If the Met Commissioner Cressida Dick had attempted to join a police force in 1950, her application would have been refused because she is only 5ft, but a minimum height restriction has been dropped.

Discipline in the past was akin to military discipline, but is now almost non- existent. Senior officers keep making the excuse that they are short of funds and officers, yet there are more police per head of population than decades ago.

And they can spend £33 million to refurbish Birmingham police HQ.

JOHN WARREN, Wolverhampton, W. Mids. I WAS a volunteer working with victims of crime for 22 years and know that they want a visit from the police and for the criminal to be caught and prosecuted. Being given a crime number is not enough.

When I was growing up in Fifties glasgow, there were always police patrolling the streets, and community disapproval was an important weapon in social control and crime prevention. Today, most of us hardly know our neighbours.

PAT O’CONNOR, Blackpool.