DEPUTY police and crime commissioner elect Sareda Dirir was asked whether she was in favour of the constabulary being armed or issued with spit hoods.

Conservative members of the Cheshire Police and Crime Panel might be grateful they never have to encounter Cllr Dirir in a shoot-out, after a bruising confirmation hearing for the law and order role.

And the county sheriff’s potential second-in-command would have benefited from some form of splash guard, as the political venom from the Tories spilled out across the committee room.

Quite whether Sareda’s reign will ever surmount the towering obstacle of her parents being ward colleagues on WBC to her prospective boss, David Keane, is perhaps a question best left for posterity.

For those who watched the full 52 minutes and 43 seconds of her crime panel grilling though, there’s no doubt the teacher/freelance journalist/Salford councillor can robustly defend herself.

One of her Tory inquisitors, Frodsham’s Paul Dawson, even tried to pull her up on her ‘aggressive’ tone, halfway through.

However Podium was more interested in some of her other answers. The guns and spit hoods question was ostensibly dodged.

Another slow-bowled query about her research on criminal justice research met with a response which was vague in the extreme.

And her wider experience of the law appeared to revolve around being a teacher at a London school which welcomed the first police hub in the country.

This hack has hung around police stations and courts and loitered behind crime scene tape, across six counties, for 22 years and I’m fairly sure this doesn’t qualify me for a £50k a year role monitoring bobbies and their bosses.

Crime panel chairman Cllr Howard Murray damned the candidate with faint praise when he later wrote to Mr Keane, conceding she had met the ‘minimum’ requirements.

Cllr Dirir, who would be well advised to ditch her Salford Council sideline if confirmed, is odds on to still fill the post and maybe that’s a good thing.

No-one would have to work harder to maintain their independence in the position, to sidestep charges of nepotism, knowing the performance of both the PCC and deputy will be intensely scrutinised by opposition councillors henceforth.

  •  Just after Podium’s deadline last week came the news that Future Tech, the studio school on the Winwick Road campus, will cease to be after the summer term.

Is there anything more dispiriting than what’s happening to our education system at the moment?

How can colleges and employers adequately reflect on the merits of an institution which lasted barely three years, when assessing applications from youngsters who attended?

This is not intended as a reflection on the service offered by Future Tech, or whether it’s business model bore any realistic chance of success.

Nor should it be considered a slight on the university technical college or any academy-based venture.

But surely a semblance of stability and security is the least we should be offering teenagers at the most important junctures of their lives?

  •  City of Culture? Jury’s out for some. But one quick stroll through the bus station tells its own tale.

Friends of Walton Hall welcome pianist Tom Hicks on March 29, new political discourse society, Warrington Forum, launches at Anima, Holy Trinity Church’s Saturday lunchtime concerts programme continues, the Lit and Phil Society host a poetry lecture on April 3.

Like Celia Jordan and the arts council’s campaign for a Warrington theatre, plenty are striving, so why ever not?