I think you and others are missing my point.
The problems with NPAS and deployment has nothing to do with the crews.
The EDL protest did not warrant getting a helicopter airborne for 300 protesters.
If we have reached a point in society that the police have to have an expensive piece of kit
constantly flying over central London every day then it is time for me to leave.
Every single square metre of central London has cctv surveillance.
I do not have a personal bias but just wonder if some of the wasted high tech helicopter budget would be better deployed at a basic street level?
What was the justification in filming Michael McIntyre?
Here is an example of street crime where police really need to focus on the major issues.
A disabled gran was brutally beaten with a baseball and threatened by a knife-wielding thug in a terrifying ordeal over her son's £100 cannabis debt.
Gran-of-three Barbara Dransfield was put on a life support machine and left in a coma for two weeks after she was mercilessly beaten.
She was sitting in her wheelchair at her home in Ashton-under-Lyne when a masked gang raided her home, report the Manchester Evening News.
Minshull Street Crown Court was told how she was savagely beaten after her son, Daniel, ran up a £100 cannabis debt.
A bit of low cost policing might be better than helicopters chasing car theft and petty crime in Manchester.