You can hardly have missed the outbreak of giant advertisements – on bus shelters and billboards – for the 'policing pledge'. The clever slogans must have cost a fortune alone. Think how many hours it took a marketing meeting to come up with 'you have the right not to remain silent' and then change the font size around to maximise the effect.

But what's the point of the advert? To make you check out a website to find out more about the pledge. Or you can text, or phone your local force's non-emergency number.

I like to try all modern things out on my mother. I'm sorry, she said, when learning of the pledge, I don't know what you are talking about.

When she sees one of those adverts, she just ignores it.

What's a pledge? Isn't it some kind of polish that makes things look ridiculously shiny and new? Sort of.

She doesn't use the web, nor can she text. I suppose she could call that non-emergency number, but it's not given on the posters, so you'd have to look it up in the phone book. That's a lot of effort, and for no known reward. She could ask a policeman, but she has not seen one walk down her road in years.

And, anyway, she doesn't want a pledge; she just wants the police to sort out the yobs in the park, so I had to look it up for her.

The pledge is a list of things the police say they'll do for us. There was a row last year when it was first unveiled, and I ignored it as a bit of nonsense then, but the advertisements have wound me up again.

We know what we want police to do, and they surely know, and if they don't do it then we can surely assume there are some mechanisms for making them do so – crime league tables, police authorities, and the rest of it.

They already swear an oath to the Queen, and we pay their wages, so the relationship between us and them could not be any clearer. A pledge is not needed.

I feel – given that my taxes have paid for the advertisements – like the victim of a fraud. Perhaps I should call the police.