YOU really have to question the police’s sense of proportion when a 12-year-old boy is taken out of class and quizzed about his campaign to save a youth club.

The rising tide of anger and protest against public sector cuts is placing a huge demand on the police across the country.

But at what point did anyone think it was a good idea to question young Nicky Wishart at school about his protest outside David Cameron’s constituency office without a parent present?

Whatever the intention of terrorist police — who are picking up their ‘intelligence’ by surfing Facebook it would seem — a young boy feels he was threatened with possible arrest and intimidated by the officer who went along to Bartholomew School.

We did not pass much comment at the time, but juxtapose this against the decision to stand idly by when about 100 protesters invaded and occupied the Radcliffe Camera.

That decision was not necessarily wrong, but for the same force to then target a 12-year-old at school is completely inconsistent.

It claims it was picking up information to ensure the protest went off peacefully. But police officers are an arm of the state and so will always have the danger of being perceived as working for the Government.

Picking on children does nothing to dispel that.