Sam Tyler

With a new series of Life on Mars starting again on Tuesday 13th February. I find myself feeling some empathy for Sam Tyler’s “What the hell is going on?” dilemma.

I look at the job I’m doing, at the free reign given to crooks, at the emphasis placed on political correctness and the need to wear my tie straight – and I’m baffled.

Sam lives in my ideal policing world:

Little paperwork

Police on the streets, and are not part of a “New code of practice department” or similar

No Crown Prosecution Service

Real crime, no “I have kids on the corner of my street, one of them is smoking, what are you going to do about it?” calls

An active CID team who seem to go out and fight crime too

Meals

Lady coppers in skirts (ok, that one was just for badness)

I know exactly why Sam is distracted half the time, all he can hear is 136,000 uk police officers begging for his job across the ages. He’s where every cop would want to wake up if they got hit by a car.