Mark Andrews: Police chief Craig Guildford auditions for The Thick of It, China's new embassy, and a peaceful way for Donald Trump to take over Greenland

Watching the now-retired West Midlands Chief Constable Craig Guildford and his sidekicks giving evidence before the home affairs select committee was like watching a particularly cringeworthy episode of The Thick of It. 

Sign up to our free newsletter today

Police top brass were questioned about the supposed intelligence that fans of Israeli club Macabbi Tel Aviv posed a danger to the public, which was based on reports of crowd trouble when Macabbi played at West Ham. There was just one fly in the ointment, West Ham had never played against Macabbi, ever. Under further questioning about where this information came from, Mr Guilford and his colleagues 'ummed and ahhed', before admitting their 'intelligence' basically amounted to a Google search. 

The one thing Mr Guildford was clear about, though, was that the force had not used artificial intelligence to summarise its dubious evidence. Only this week, he now admits that it did. His evidence was all a 'mistake', terribly sorry about that old boy. 

An admission which will, I'm sure, go down a storm with every copper who is now called to give evidence in court..

*****

And I write this as someone with first-hand experience of just how unintelligent artificial intelligence can be. 

A couple of years ago, I was asked to look at some experimental features that had been compiled by one of the big AI providers. Asked to come up with an idea for a fun day out in the West Midlands, it suggested a nice drive along the Black Country Route. This was described as a 12-mile route from Wolverhampton to West Bromwich, 'through a mix of urban areas, industrial sites, and picturesque countryside'.  

It's actually a five-mile route, from Bilston to Walsall, and in no way could it be described as 'picturesque'.

It also suggested visitors should 'keep an eye out for the Molineux Stadium and the distinctive chimneys of the former Round Oak Steelworks'. Which should be interesting, given that both locations are several miles away. And Round Oak was demolished in 1984.

Asked for suggestions on a real-life crime story, AI came up with notorious criminal 'the Tipton Slasher, whose real name was James Cook.' 

Very good, apart from the fact that the Tipton Slasher was actually a prize fighter called William Perry, and was never anything other than a law-abiding pillar of the community -  who is commemorated with a statue in the town. 

Having said that, I imagine if Mr Guildford and his AI had been around, Mr Perry would doubtless  be getting his collar felt.

*****

Next week, the Government will decide whether those lovely people in the Chinese government should be allowed to build a giant 'super-embassy' on the former site of the Royal Mint.

The building, which will be the size of 10 large Tesco Extra stores, includes plans for a 130ft underground room, with an in-built ventilation and cooling system, about 5ft 8in from the city's internet cable network.

As you can imagine, the conspiracy theories have already begun. While us modern, progressive, urban liberals, know that the only reason the Chinee Communists want a ventilated underground lair is to keep the Chablis nice and cool in the summer, those crazy old knee-jerk reactionaries think our fiends might be thinking of using it to hack into our banking and information systems.  As if they would do a thing like that. 

I guess that's what comes of watching too many episodes of The Professionals.

It has got me thinking, though. If Donald Trump wants to take control of Greenland's mineral resources, why does he need to ruffle feathers with all this talk of an invasion? All he needs to do is open a very large embassy with a mining operation in the basement.