POLICE officers are expected to ask tough questions of Theresa May when she delivers a keynote speech in Bournemouth today.

As well as addressing delegates at the Police Federation Conference, the Home Secretary will sit on a panel during a lunchtime seminar at Bournemouth International Centre.

Yesterday shadow Home Secretary Yvette Cooper accused the government of treating police like “punch bags” as ministers make the wrong judgements on the future of the service.

She said: “Police officers I’ve spoken to across the country want to be part of a sensible, responsible debate about improving policing for the future.

“But you are not punch bags. You are not material for cheap headlines. The government should stop acting as if you are.”

She repeated her prediction that the reforms were “the ingredients of the perfect storm” and warned that ministers were cutting “too far, too fast”.

The shadow Home Secretary added: “I believe David Cameron and Theresa May have made the wrong decisions and the wrong judgements about the future of policing and I fear it is communities across the country who will pay the price.”

Police Federation chairman Paul McKeever said officers would be asking tough questions of the Home Secretary during her visit to Bournemouth.

John Giblin, chairman of the Federation’s Sergeants’ Committee, accused ministers of treating officers “like cattle.”

He added: “The government, to put it bluntly, hate the police service and want to destroy it in order to rebuild it again, but in their image.

“I wish I was the bearer of good news this year but we’ve entered a period of doom, gloom and despondency in policing.”