Two years' hard labour in Melksham for police

TWO years in Melksham? What have our poor police officers done to deserve that?
Crikey, people have served less for manslaughter.
With a general election looming next year, I suspect politicians are desperate for a shiny trophy they can place before the voters and say: “Look! Despite all the hardships, this is what we’ve achieved for you.”
They are set on turning our police station into a University Technology College with all possible speed, whether that’s what residents want or not. And I’m honestly not convinced it’s higher in the wish-list of Salisbury folk than a locally-based police service.
While a proper science university might bring a much-needed injection of youthful vigour into the city and enliven its social and cultural scene as well as benefiting shops and businesses, a glorified secondary school where the vast majority of pupils commute from all over the county and go home again at the end of the afternoon won’t.
I’m not saying employers wouldn’t benefit from a larger pool of school-leavers with technical and scientific skills. This would be a desirable extra facility if everything else was tickety-boo. But it isn’t.
And its hurried introduction will mean a security firm ferrying people in custody across the Plain, sentencing their families and lawyers to lengthy journeys, until new cells are built here.
Meanwhile 999 crews will be haring down the road from their temporary base in Amesbury faster than you can say: “Your emergency is important to us. Please hold while we connect you to the next available member of our customer service team.”
With no impact on response times, of course.
City councillors can forget any money-saving ideas about flogging the Guildhall and moving into Bourne Hill with Wiltshire, because neighbourhood bobbies will have nicked all the spare rooms.
But there doesn’t seem to be a choice over timing. The people pushing this project forward at all costs won’t back down.
The daft thing is that there’s no need for the Tories to worry about their prospects.
Meaning no disrespect to John Glen - who’s a good, hardworking MP - the Tory vote in our neck of the woods is so ingrained that I could pin a blue rosette on my border collie and he’d get elected.
I’d try it, just for the fun of it, if the law allowed. The dog’s called Glen, too. Think of the perplexity in the polling booths with two Glens on the ballot paper.