Watching Sky News or leafing through the Daily Mail, it’s hard not to be struck by how much time British cops waste in activities that do nothing to keep safe those who pay their salaries. Typical of dozens of cases: an elderly woman was hauled off to the nick in Colchester for carrying a banner proclaiming “sodomy is a sin”; at another extreme, no fewer than thirty-five officers were sent out to Heathrow to "welcome" Gary Glitter. Thirty-five!

Problem is they must be running out of ideas for ways of wasting time which at least keep the policemen involved nice and safe. So what about this, then? Oliver Cromwell back in the seventeenth century pushed through a law banning the eating of mince pies on Christmas day. And it’s never been repealed. Every trendy chief constable should set up a Prohibited Pastry Brigade to raid suspected premises on December the 25th ("Think of the overtime, Sarge!"). This is no dafter, in fact, than a lot of things British cops actually do these days.