Mr Plod joins facebook, makes new friends, arrests them

Mr Plod the policeman, who has always spent most of his time with other members of the Plod clan, this week joined facebook in an attempt to modernise himself. "It's expanding my horizons," explained Mr Plod. "For example, I never used to see liberals as humans, but now I see their actual faces and it challenges my preconceptions." Mr Plod has also been joining groups by the hundred, and has 'liked' literally thousands of pages, including the fan page of Boris Johnson, for whom he has always had a slightly guilty admiration, knowing him to have committed criminal indiscretions in his youth but beguiled by his jocular approach to politics.

But colleagues have been complaining that Mr Plod has been spending too much time on facebook and not enough time on the beat. "He spent the entirety of yesterday morning on there," said one colleague. "Apparently he was going round the profiles of 'known protesters' and simply posting the words 'Political extremist' on their profile. It seemed to give him a lot of pleasure but it's not what he's meant to be doing."

When challenged on the amount of time he spends on facebook however Mr Plod explained that he was involved in 'important intelligence gathering' and had set up a number of fake pages in order to attract extremists and other violent characters. "I set up one page called 'I want to punch David Cameron in the face' and it has already attracted 3000 fans," he explained. "I've set up another called 'I have feelings of rage towards those in authority' which I think will be very useful. If you think about it we could probably weed out all the bad people in society just with facebook."

Mr Plod went on to say that he was also about to massively boost his arrest count by arresting nearly everyone on facebook, including all of his new friends, for "sending an offensive or indecent message" contrary to the Communications Act of 2003. "I know it's going to end the fun I've been having on facebook," Mr Plod says wistfully, "And I know a lot of people think the Communications Act 2003 is the kind of law a dictatorial junta would pass. But if I am to apply the law universally instead of just selectively against people I don't like - which would be very wrong - then I'm afraid that everyone is guilty."

Mr Plod will begin his campaign of arrests tomorrow. He plans to use the Isle of Wight as a holding cell until more permanent accommodation can be built.