POLICEMEN and presidents both need the trust of the people and the communities they serve.

In America, there is growing concern that, whether it be Al Gore or George W Bush who wins, their legitimacy will have been damaged. What sort of mandate is given more by the law courts than the ballot boxes? What sort of power is it when Mr Gore has been seen to be desperately clinging to it and Mr Bush has been seen to be greedily grasping at it? How will the people trust either, knowing that they emerged victorious from the fiasco because of a legal nicety or a constitutional sleight of hand?

In Cleveland - that's Cleveland on Teesside and not Cleveland in Ohio - it is very much the same. Operation Lancet has now boiled down, just like the presidential race, to a battle of personalities. It is very much one man's word against the other: whether he really will cut taxes or whether he really didn't leak information to the media.

And whoever wins on Teesside, what legitimacy will he have? If exonerated, will Detective Superintendent Ray Mallon ever be able to work with the force in which there is clearly so much bitterness and rancour? If Mr Mallon is found guilty of the disciplinary offences, how will Chief Constable Barry Shaw be able to face the people with them knowing that he was both judge and jury, and presided over numerous inquiries that degenerated into a fiasco?

In America, the answer appears obvious to us Brits who wander into the polling booth and put a single cross in a simple box. It is surely not beyond America, a great technological nation, to come up with a system that does not rely on antiquated machinery punching holes in complicated forms. Only by making all the states' voting procedures clear and independent will the people trust that their votes really do count and that their president has been elected by the will of the people.

In Cleveland, the answer also appears obvious. Only a clear and independent inquiry will allow the facts to be known, and only after such an inquiry will the people be able to trust whichever side emerges victorious.

America now faces having a tainted president for four long years - but at least after the next election, if modern procedures are in place, the agony will be over.

The people of Cleveland have endured three long years of bitterness and great expense in which the policing of their community has become a national laughing stock. With the accusations becoming more and more serious and showing no sign of being resolved, for them there is no prospect of an early release - unless, of course, an independent inquiry is begun as soon as possible.