Letter: Police business

Sir: I reflected yesterday on your front-page headline 'Police to be run on 'business lines' ' with an anticipation bordering on hysteria. If times are bad, may my local force (the Met) go into receivership? And if times are good, will they declare a dividend - rather than the heavy police subvention I notice on my council tax demand?

Equipped with a huge range of custom-built premises (shops? - from 'to be shopped') will they enter the gift business, like the National Trust. Hurry, hurry, genuine forged pound notes, strictly limited edition (sold with certificate of authenticity . . .). My mind boggles. But in John Major's Britain Ltd, am I really dreaming?

Yours,

BROADBRIDGE

House of Lords

London, SW1

25 March