Sir Ian Blair, the Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, said that the police had become almost a race apart and cut off from the talented recruits that it needed.

His attack on the middle classes came in the annual Dimbleby lecture on BBC One, in which he called for a debate with the public on what kind of police they want.

But his call prompted criticism and puzzlement from other officers and politicians. Jan Berry, the chairman of the Police Federation, said: “I don’t understand how this debate will be held with the public in the way he describes.”

John Denham, the chairman of the Commons Home Affairs Select Committee, said: “I think there is no great debate to be had about delivering accountable local policing. The question is how do you make sure that happens.”

Sir Ian started his attack on the middle classes as he described the difficulties of recruiting. He said: “I have lost count of the number of times I have been told by people that they had thought of joining the police but hadn’t the courage. What they actually mean by and large is that they thought that, interesting as it was, they were of too superior a class or educational background.”

Sir Ian, an Oxford graduate, said that at the very foundation of the modern police in the 19th century politicians made it clear that it was not a job for gentlemen and the stigma had stuck. The result was that the police had become the preserve of “the striving lower-middle class, predominantly white, predominantly male”. Many more women were now in the police but Sir Ian said that “class remains an issue”.

Police recruits earn more than junior lawyers, teachers and doctors but the middle classes remain at arm’s length, although Sir Ian said the police needed “the best brains and the most balanced characters”.

In a lecture entitled What Kind of Police Service Do We Want?, the Commissioner called for the citizen to be “embedded” in policing. He said that unlike other public services such as education and health the police had remained “a service which is separate and silent”.

He said that until the shooting of Jean Charles de Menezes at Stockwell Underground station in July police had only discussed the use of lethal force against suicide bombers in private with a select group of politicians, advisers and civil servants. This had to change and an open debate was now required not only about dealing with suicide bombers but also about the use of firearms by a predominantly unarmed force.

Overall in policing there had been “little policy discussion but lots of interest”. Sir Ian said: “The silence can no longer continue. The citizens of Britain have to articulate what kind of police service they want.”

People now look to the police not only for protection from terrorism, but also because of the growth of antisocial behaviour with the collapse of the influence of churches, the disappearance of people such as park keepers and “the imperfectly implemented decision” to close long-stay psychiatric institutions, he said.

Sir Ian added: “We need to move from policing by consent, which is the bedrock of our policing settlement but which is passive to policing by direct colloboration, which is active.”

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