Murder by degrees.

The violent death of a WPC in a bungled bank robbery in Bradford has inevitably elicited carefully considered knee jerk reactions from those that should know better.

As usual, when one of our police officers gets shot, the great, the good and Michael Winner demand the reinstatement of capital punishment. As usual, there seems no problem rolling out brigades of police officers, forensics and back up to investigate the crime. The news footage on Friday and Saturday was a case in point – wall to wall police officers at the scene of crime.

They rounded up 6 suspects in London on Sunday. Within hours they headed north on the M1, destination Bradford. The police had instigated a rolling road-block – which means no cars were allowed to overtake the police convoy. They couldn’t anyway, police cars braced the entire 3 lanes of the motorway.

The size of the convoy was huge – 7 armoured police transit vehicles and a cocktail of 8 assorted high powered Beemers, Volvos and Range Rovers. 15 vehicles in all. Headlights blazing, blue lights flashing – and that’s not counting the local motor bikes and panda cars clearing the way in the urban sprawls at the beginning and end of the journey.

Lord Stevens, former Metropolitan Commissioner of Police has demanded the reinstatement of the death penalty for the murder of Police Officers.

Now I’m not demeaning this awful crime. I’m desperately sorry for this woman’s family – especially her kids. But I’d like to think that if an ordinary member of the public had been murdered, shot in a bungled robbery – all the stops would be pulled out to find the killers.

But I know they wouldn’t. Innocent people, including kids routinely get shot in all of our major cities without so much as a single hand wring from Lord Stevens. According to him and his ridiculously ill thought out statement, police officers lives are worth more than your average citizen – and that just isn’t right is it?