Our thanks to J for this in last Friday’s Evening Standard. The paper’s editor, Sarah Sands, is a feminist, and we see the expected downplaying of a gender perspective in a story when women don’t come out well by comparison with men. But the stark fact is that one in 12 female officers fails a basic fitness test, along with just one in 80 male officers. The lesson is obvious. We ‘need’ more female officers. Ahem.

It’s obvious that a basic level of physical fitness is required by police officers in certain circumstances, yet it’s far from clear that a consistently poor level of fitness will result in a police officer losing his/her job. Yet another example of standards being compromised so as to drive up the proportion of women in a well-paid profession. And when police officers are deliberately put in a dangerous situation, e.g. raiding a drugs den, you can be sure of two things:

1. Male officers will be first into the building, with their female colleagues (on equal pay) following some time later, if at all; and

2. A spokeswoman will later relate to the media what’s happened.

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