My father was a police officer for a number of years, so I think they've never really seemed threatening to me. It's funny how perceptions are different though. While I was at university, I was walking through York with a friend who was from London. We passed two police officers who said 'hello' as we walked past them. She was genuinely weirded out by this, and was convinced you'd never get that in London, whereas I thought it was relatively common outside of cities.

I think one of the things that is important is that there is as much transparency as is practically possible from the police, and as much engagement as possible between citizens and the police. I think, in Britain, the public trust in the police has probably been badly shaken by the recent Hillsborough Inquest findings and rightly so. There's always going to be a certain degree of mistrust of the police, I think, because of the authority they represent. I think the critical thing is being able to trust them, and having faith in them to administer justice fairly and without prejudice.

I'm impressed I got through this post without using the word pleb! Oh, hang on...