’Ello ’ello ’ello, what's been going on ’ere then? Bobbies on the tweet in Manchester? With all that paperwork, how come they’ve got time for that, eh?

That seems to have been a common reaction to the exercise carried out this week by the Manchester police to give a ‘day in the life of’ insight via Twitter, of what the force deals with in an ordinary day. With cuts looming, they were making a point but ended up pilloried by some.

Not by me. Am I the only one who found it fascinating and educational that, as well as the reports of serious crime, they also dealt with what were deemed by the people having a pop at them as “trivial pursuits”. These included calls about cows on the road and a man holding a baby over a bridge that turned out to be a dog that didn't like bridges. Call me a tweet but if there were cows on the road causing a danger or you thought a man was holding a baby over the bridge, does dialling the emergency services seem so trivial?

Manchester police recorded 1,140 incidents in the first 12 hours including, no doubt, ridiculous calls by numpties. But 1,140 is a lot.

By contrast, Dorset police release details of, on average, about five incidents a day. Why so few?

I know we live in a well-behaved county but the force might benefit from telling the public more about their daily challenges. The public’s greater understanding of the difficulties experienced by our police can only be a good thing, can’t it?.

So I’ll support Manchester on their initiative. It was anything but a case of wasting police time.

(Which, after all, would be a criminal offence.)