Not so much an icebreaker, more a blunderbuss

A branch chairman of the Police Federation says the force should drop its ban on officers having visible tattoos, writes Peter Rhodes.

He believes that showing off tattoos would be "an icebreaker" when dealing with the public.

Au contraire, sunshine. The much-tattooed underclass would still regard the cops with the usual fear and loathing. One barbed-wire bracelet on the sergeant's wrist is not going to wipe out generations of hostility, innit?

As for the middle classes, a display of tattoos would merely reinforce their suspicion that Her Majesty's Constabulary has been taken over by scutters.

It is worrying, too, that some English police don't know that tattoos are a cultural statement.

They are forbidden for Muslims and Orthodox Jews on the grounds that they alter God's creation for reasons of vanity and frivolity.

In some cross-cultural encounters, a tattoo is not so much an icebreaker as a blunderbuss.