Less than a year ago, Bristol police stood aside and watched a mob tear down a statue and hoof it into the harbour. The top cop on the scene gave an interview explaining how he ‘understood’ the protestors.

He probably understands them a little better today.

Those chickens are not only coming home to roost but have now been crisply barbecued atop a fleet of flaming Fords.

It’s as if the Old Bill had discovered the streets for the first time, given their shock at being handed their expansive arses on an even wider platter.

After all, the world outside Krispy Kreme is a lot more hazardous than smashing through a Sharer Double Dozen while dogging up fourteen-year-olds who look like they might have attitude.

In the real world, wolves never fear a barking dog. Betray a weakness, and they’ll eat you up.

And that probably sums it up quite aptly.

The kerfuffle with Edward Colston had seen the busies swerve a bog-standard stand-off with a few acne-burdened teenagers and the odd figure-88, tree-hugging slacktivist, and yesterday’s resounding spanking was as inevitable as it was hilarious.

In a heartbeat, years of hand-wringing community coppering counted for nothing and went up in a hearty cloud of burning Ford Kuga.

And there wasn’t a dry eye in the house.

Every shit-kicking speeding ticket resurfaced on haunt max 10 and stuck two erect fingers right into the over-burgered, porky faces of the heaving, sweating hobbycops, struggling to keep their high-waisters up over their biscuit-bloated bowling balls.

And the streets of Bristol once again savoured that heady cocktail of adrenaline, held-in pre-excrement, and flame-grilled baton.

‘Have you got anything in your pockets that might hurt me?’

‘Only my certain knowledge of your ineptitude‘.

It is indeed mind-boggling that any fuzz were injured at all because they were all straight out of the blocks and had scarpered pretty sharpish at the first sign of uglies.

But if their craven, quick split had come as a shock, their pussified discomposure the next morning manifestly blew away even the most dedicated cop-groupies.

It was nothing but an excruciating, tale-telling, victimised whingefest from police spokesmen, who were imploring the press to step in and salvage their tarnished reputation with the public.

You lost that when you bottled the statue gig, rozzer.

When all is said and done, all we have learned about this Policing Bill is that Governments cannot deliver effective policing by serving up a slapdash mille-feuille of legislative Teflon.

They’d be better off just hiring some decent flatfeet who would serve the community rather than swerve it.