The BBC reports from a publication by the Police Federation of England and Wales about their daily duties. These include for example:
Cautioning a man from Cheshire for being “found in possession of an egg with intent to throw”, arresting a child in Kent (the kid removed a slice of cucumber from a sandwich and threw it at another youngster), or arresting two children from Manchester for being in possession of a plastic toy pistol (at least some educational effort there, but better would have been to arrest the kids’ parents).
The Police Federation of England and Wales claim that this is a consequence of Labour’s red tape “targets” — the development of which was portrayed by Adam Curtis in his BBC documentary The Trap – What Happened To Our Dream Of Freedom?. .rm files might be here…