What's wrong with a sixty-year-old copper?

Lord Hutton has pronounced and, as I'm sure we could have predicted, the public sector unions are sharpening their pitchforks and lighting torches ready to march on the castles of power. I don't however intend to comment about the report since, dear reader, I haven't read it (something I suspect those journalists interviewing council workers on funded superannuation schemes should have done).

I was however very struck by the response of the Police Federation - or rather their spokesman on the radio - to the part that saw police retirement age rise to sixty. In this man's view:

We don't want sixty-year-old policemen walking the streets do we!

Thinking about this for a minute, it struck me that there's no justification for this argument anymore - and I'm not just saying this because I'm past fifty now! I look at the men and women jogging, riding bikes and much else besides - many of who are over 60 - and see no reason why there should be (fitness aside) any problem at all with a copper of this age. And is there really much difference between fifty-five and sixty? Surely what matters is whether the person is fit to do the job not how old that person is?

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