Police Demand Extra Funds For Enormous Orbital Bat-Signal Reflector

With the prime minister absolutely unshakeable in his belief that our only hope for national salvation lies in adopting the crime-fighting techniques that have made America a crime-free paradise, police chiefs are reluctantly accepting his insistence on appointing the legendary Batman as Britain’s crime supremo, but warn that the plan will be unworkable unless they are given the funding to construct and launch a 200-mile bat-signal reflector into geostationary orbit midway above the Atlantic Ocean, along with the associated power station needed to run the world’s most powerful searchlight.

“Oh, and prime minister - you’d better hang a couple of hundred metres of bat-rope off the reflector, if you want a quick response,” observed Sir Hugh Orde.

He'll need a bloody tall tower too, if he wants to keep his feet dry

Fantasy experts on both sides of the Atlantic, however, are yet to be convinced that a single superhero will bring down crime.

“Once you introduce superheroes, supervillains inevitably follow in their wake, and you’ve basically got a never-ending arms race,” warned Josh Geake, who insisted that the piles of comics covering his carpet were nothing less than unbound graphic literature. “Now the States have Superman, Batman, Justice League of America, the X-Men, Iron Man, The Fantastic Four, Swamp Thing and Captain America and still it gets worse by the day. They’ve even spilled over into alternate realities.”

“Do we really want the streets of Britain dominated by legions of corrupt megalomaniacs who seem to evade justice every time and for whom money always seems to be available?” he asked. “The supervillains, I mean. Not the police.”