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A raft of famous people - from Falklands War veteran Simon Weston

to the ex-Eastenders actress Patsy Palmer - have been drafted in as

recruiting sergeants for Britain’s police force.

They are fronting two of a series of commercials in which they admit

they could never do some of the harrowing and dangerous jobs which

police officers tackle every day. The end of each film poses the

question: ’Could you?’ The campaign, which made its debut on Wednesday

night during A Touch of Frost, is the first to be produced by M&C

Saatchi since the home secretary, Jack Straw, approved the agency’s

appointment (±±¾©Èü³µpk10, 9 June).

The advertising has the dual aims of bolstering the police’s public

image and attracting quality recruits to fill 9,000 vacancies at

constabularies across the country over the next three years.

The tone of the campaign is set by Weston, much admired for his courage

in rebuliding his life after suffering disfiguring burns in the

Falklands conflict. But in the film he confesses he would never be able

to tell a man that his wife and child had just been killed by a drunken

driver.

Palmer concedes that although she has a reputation for being ’a bit

lippy’, she could not find the words to persuade a 15-year-old girl to

shop her drug-dealing boyfriend.

A third film features John Barnes, the former Liverpool and England

footballer, who says he is used to keeping his cool on big match days

but would not know how to disperse trouble-seeking soccer hooligans. A

fourth has the TV inquisitor Joan Bakewell recoiling at the prospect of

questioning a suspected rapist.

All the celebrities are understood to have been paid only modest fees

with some choosing to donate the money to charity.

Simon Dicketts, the M&C Saatchi creative director, wrote the ads

alongside his art director, Fergus Fleming. They were directed by Kevin

Thomas, of Thomas Thomas.

Dicketts said: ’We’ve tried to avoid using people who are famous for

being famous. We’ve gone for people who are respected and who you might

think would make good police officers.’