How DARE You Try And Fight Crime.

I'll be honest, when I was 6 I wanted to be a policeman (or police officer according to the rules and regulations - thank you Hot Fuzz). I don't know why, maybe it was the fact my granddad was in the Fuzz for countless years before he died. Or maybe it was the fact I could carry around various weapons like bats and pepper spray (American kids who want to be cops have so much more to look forward to) or maybe it was the fact you got to run around town fighting crime with an Alsatian. Who knows?

But if I'd have known you could have piloted an unmanned drone with a remote control to fight the crims of England, I would have bailed on primary school painting lessons and headed straight down to the police station to start work there and then.

Well now the kids of today who dream of being a police officer have this to look forward to. Because the Merseyside Police now have the opportunity to fly around small drones with thermal imaging and cameras and all sorts of other things which would make Q go all cross eyed and cross legged. And to be honest, all it needs is some machine guns and the invisibility trick from Bond's Aston Martin Vanquish from Die Another Day and it's my own little crime-fighting wet dream. Admittedly, you do have to be a police officer in Liverpool to operate the thing, which lets be honest, doesn't have quite the same 'pazzazz' as Crockett & Tubbs or Starsky & Hutch. But still, this little drone thing sounds awesome. It can fly up to 400ft and reach speeds of 30mph, perfect for keeping up with a Ford Escort full of Scousers. Officers say they used the thermal imaging to find a criminal hiding in some undergrowth without wasting valuable man hours or sniffer dogs. How amazing is that? Although if a man from Liverpool is in some undergrowth it usually means he's doing his grocery shopping...

Ok. All well and good. So why is the title of this post what it is? Well, the evil minions who run this country have put a stop to all this good work. Yes that's right, another blog post that talks about how this country's gone to dogs, surprise surprise.

I just want to move. Honest.

The Civil Aviation Authority has decided that this £40,000 bit of tech needs a license. They also need the CAA's permission to fly within a certain distance of buildings and people. And finally, Merseyside Police have invited the CAA to see how they use the drone. It all sounds as though the CAA are surprised that this drone actually fights crime. Surely these wazzocks have seen James Bond to realise that the man in the tux is totally useless and it's the fancy tech stuff that ALWAYS beats the bad guys. And what with the crims of today getting quite tech savvy and everything (maybe not from Liverpool), the Fuzz are gonna need more than a truncheon and the nose of a Spaniel to fight them. And denying them the use of a £40,000 because it needs some bureaucratic piece of paper to say it works (when the damn things been in service since November) is a waste of time.

As long as the remote doesn't end up in the hands of some Scouse kid, then life is good. Mind you, he'd probably have more of an idea than the brain-dead oafs at the CAA.