IF you are of the left, it’s hard not to chuckle at the plight of the Police Federation after it has been refused permission to march through Parliament Square in protest at the truncated pay deal which has been forced upon its members by the government.

But it’s a temptation that is going to have to be resisted by all of us. After all, police officers are as much victims of this government’s attacks as anyone else and, as with other public servants, they have families to support, mortgages or rent to pay and bills that stack up just as fast as anyone else’s.

The so-called “phasing” of their 2.5 per cent pay award, was merely a euphemism for a clear government refusal to accept the verdict of the pay review body and to hack police pay rises back to a below 2 per cent level as required by our cuts-fixated Prime Minister.

It is however, gloriously ironic, especially given the behaviour of elements of the police territorial support group towards protesters in and around Parliament Square last Saturday, that the federation is being forced to adopt the subterfuge of a “mass queue” outside Parliament in order to get its point across legally.

And it will come as no surprise that the federation is being careful to point out that it isn’t “instructing” officers to do anything specific, since any such instruction would be illegal.

But there can be no doubt that the federation is justified in its anger about the government’s dirty little tricks with its members’ pay.

The statement by Suffolk Police Federation chairman Matt Gould, that “police officers do not have the right to strike so we expect the government to act honourably in their dealings with us,” might seem to betray a weakness in the federation’s understanding. Mr Gould appears to infer that anyone who has the right to strike must expect the government to act dishonourably.

Although, considered another way, this may just be a restatement of reality, in that almost every public-sector employee who cherishes the right to strike has, indeed, suffered from dishonourable conduct by this government, as witness Justice Minister Jack Straw’s dirty tricks with the rights of the Prison Officers Association and the mass sackings faced by PCS members.

Human rights group Liberty director Shami Chakrabarti’s offer to represent the federation in a test case over its right to peaceful protest may at first appear to be a tongue-in-cheek offer with sarcastic undertones, but Ms Chakrabarti is making a serious point which should be taken on board by individual officers.

When the right to peaceful protest is undermined by a dishonourable government in order to escape criticism and avoid resistance to unacceptable measures by that government, the structure of democracy itself is at risk.

And it is perfectly acceptable for people to protest against that threat, whether they be police officers, prison officers, civil servants or any other group of citizens.

Mass action is one of the only recourses open to inhabitants of a democracy whose government and opposition are both united in abusing the trust placed in them by the electorate.

So, while it may be tempting for the trade union movement to offer tellers to the police in order to guarantee that the numbers on their protest are reported accurately, that not being a noted strength of the the Met, the temptation should be resisted.

In the course of their wages struggle, individual police officers may learn something about the reality of life in Gordon Brown’s phoney democracy and that is a lesson which could benefit us all in the end.