A London committee has approved a request for more police funding.

London Police Service (LPS) announced they are looking into buying a fleet of F-35 fighter jets, which would only cost Londoners about $70 billion.

LPS hopes to acquire the jets currently on order for the Canadian Forces. With the feds likely to cancel the contract in favour of Swedish Gripens, LPS offered to buy the US planes at a discount.

“These jets are essential to making London safe,” said the LPS Chief. “We hear your concerns: open drug use, break-ins, assaults, neighbours doing renovations that don’t fit in with the street's aesthetic…we simply don’t have the resources to deal with these right now.”

The Chief of Police admitted that the previous $672 million increase had all been spent on paid officer suspensions and take-out and added the purchase of a new light armoured vehicle (LAV) was not as effective as they had hoped.

“Some of the boys took the LAV out to Bad Bunny last Saturday. I won’t go into the details now, but she’s out of commission until she gets a good clean.”

According to an LPS media release, the LAV will likely be sold as-is on Marketplace, as unchallenged air supremacy over the skies of London makes the glorified Hummer pretty much useless, anyway.

“Look, conventional land units are not working—potholes, bad traffic, and drive-thru lines are longer than ever—so the consensus is that we would be more effective from the air.”

The Chief said that it would be a shift in strategy, but they’ve rehired public relations firm Navigator to help with their messaging.

“Air strikes are proven to be effective,” he read from the PR firm’s suggested script. “Believe me, car thieves and people who run stop signs will get the message when we fly over like, ‘This is LONDON’— then boom…dusted.”

He added that surface-to-air missiles also make it less likely that a criminal will reoffend, making London safer for everyone outside the blast radius.

Long wait-times for 911 calls would also be a thing of the past.

“Our officers are busy. They have Bachelor Nights, Paint Nights, Stitch-and-Bitch, Bad Boys marathons—it’s a packed schedule. But with the F-35s, we could fly over and be back before the end of a commercial break.”

While London’s council is expected to approve the funding request, some members did voice concerns about the cost.

“It’s not a great time,” one councillor told LPS. “We just dumped another $20 million into the Bus Rapid Transit project. Our idiot intern bought the wrong shade of paint for the road—we told them fire engine red but it’s clearly more of a cherry red, and the lady at Home Depot said no refunds. You can imagine our predicament.”

Committee members reconsidered, however, after staff assured them that the increase wouldn’t affect their salaries.

“We’ve crunched the numbers,” explained the city’s top accountant. “Londoners are already expecting a 7.3 per cent tax increase—if we switch a couple numbers and move the decimal a few spots to the right, they won’t notice.”

Council will hold the final vote on the funding increase later this month.