Should the UK government overhaul police leadership recruitment and promotion?

Three in four votes on refnation backed overhauling police leadership recruitment, but the headline conceals a sharper story: this was consensus among the old and contest among the middle-aged. Every voter over 55 who took part, eighteen of them, wanted change; younger cohorts were far less sure.

The 25-34s split exactly down the middle, as did the small 45-54 group, while the youngest voters and the 35-44s leaned yes without quite the unanimity of their elders. Men and women landed in similar territory, both comfortably in favour, suggesting gender was not the fault line here — age was.

That pattern tracks a familiar British instinct: those with longer memories of policing's postwar reputation, and perhaps more experience of its recent decline, seem readier to demand institutional reset than those still building careers within or alongside it. It echoes wider debates about public-sector meritocracy versus experience, and the same generational scepticism about "reform" as a euphemism for upheaval that colours rows over the NHS or the civil service.

A commission's warnings about nepotism and a postcode lottery in promotions found their most enthusiastic audience among those who have watched the system longest — and its most divided among those who might one day rise through it.