Police Ads Strike Sour Note With U.K. Home Office

The United Kingdom’s Home Office is not happy with the Police. Officials say a recent ad campaign by the Police Federation isn’t up to code. The police officers’ representative group launched a campaign fighting the government’s planned 20 percent budget cuts by showing what life might be like without enough bobbies on the streets.

The most recent in a series of print ads depicts a little girl covering her ears huddled in a corner with a menacing shadow of a man yelling in the foreground. The copy reads, "Consequences of 20% cuts to policing? Cuts are criminal." The federation already ran the ad in the free Metro newspaper and plans to use the image, along with others, in a more widespread campaign.

The Home Office is crying foul. Officials say the advertisements pander to people’s worst fears and are an unfair representation of the type of cuts that will actually take place within the police force.