Let them ride bicycles

Police have lavished more than £130million on hire cars over the past five years - enough to buy themselves two top-of-the range BMW cars every day.

The astonishing level of spending - which averages out at £72,500 a day or £507,501 a week - comes despite chief constables claiming they are desperately short of cash.

Police say they use the cars instead of taking train journeys, which could prove more expensive.

Lancashire has spent more than £3m on hire cars, while the Met has run up a bill of £48.1m.

Liberal Democrat spokesman Chris Huhne, who unearthed the figures, said: 'At a time when police budgets are under extreme pressure, it seems unnecessary lavish to be spending over seventy thousand pounds a day on hire cars.

In the Comments column an indignant Daily Mail reader writes

Get them back on bicycles, the lazy fat sods.