Police commissioner election count begins
bbc.co.uk/news/uk-20352539
bbc.co.ukPosted Nov 16, 2012, 11:51 AM UTC
1524
bbc.co.ukSeemed a dumb idea to begin with, the Chief Cosntable is going to do what he wants anyway. I checked out my local list (found myself, received zero information in the mail) online and they all could have been copies of each other. Promises to be tough on crime, tough on the causes of crime, more police on the street, bla bla bla, like all it was waiting for was someone to come along and tell the chief "You've got to be tougher!".
Utter farce and waste of money.
13
...I checked out my local list (found myself, received zero information in the mail) online and they all could have been copies of each other...
I copied all the "Manifesto pledges" and promises from the websites / campaign pledges of all the candidate for the West Midlands. Then I ran them through a programme to highlight the most commonly occuring words:
http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_mdg51lv4Fh1qa7o0ko1_1280.jpg
£75m is about how much this entire election has cost. I'd be willing to bet if you repeated the exercise I did, with every candidate across all forty odd campaigns, you'd generate an image that's similar to the one above.
5
We had one guy who actually seemed (once I visited his site to read more detailed material) to break away from that in the sense that he seemed to be approaching it from a more fair-minded angle: less "tough on crime" and more "actual justice", with emphasis on holding the police to account for wrongdoing or malpractice.
He was dead last, beaten even by a fucking UKIP representative. Depressing stuff. Anyway, with any luck this position will just be a meaningless title and symbolic seat and nothing more.
0
I see the excuses are already being generated.
Via: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-20354044
1236: Norman Smith Chief political correspondent, BBC News Channel tweets: Downing Street blame low turnout in part on lack of coverage by London media."The national media have not covered themselves in glory."#pcc
1238: Norman Smith Chief political correspondent, BBC News Channel tweets: No 10 say would not have been appropriate at a time of austerity to use taxpayers money for free mail shots for Police Commissioner elex
The last one in particular smacks of double standards, given that the Government have spent £75M of tax payers money, to actually undertake the elections in the first place. In addition to the salaries these newly elected PCCs will be paid.
11
Does anyone have a breakdown of what the £75M was actually spent on?
3
So we've got £75mil to chuck around for this, but we're so skint that officers on the old pension scheme will be paying 14% of their salary into their pension... Mixed messages perhaps to say the least
10
Hey, at least it wasn't on the scale of the US presidential election (which won't have much influence on US policy either). That supposedly cost $6 billion...
0
6 billion of campaign money not tax money.
We spent 75 million of tax money running this farce. We cut front line policing to pay for this failed brewery piss up.
15 % turn out. Say 60% vote for the winner, so around 8% of the population voted for the winning commissioner.
What a fucking mandate. If I was the chief inspector I'd point and laugh every time the clown commissioner tried to order me to anything.
3
6 billion of campaign money not tax money.
We spent 75 million of tax money running this farce. We cut front line policing to pay for this failed brewery piss up.
True enough.
2
I was under the impression that the commissioners were supposed to be free of political affiliation, sadly this does not appear to be the case.
Even worse is the fact this was thrown together, the candidate lists were released literally two weeks before voting and no-one had time to see who is behind the people up for election.
We are simply coughing up more money for another tier of politics that really is not needed. The police forces boundaries are generally within political boundry lines as well. Surely the 'Super Councils' should be overseeing their spending,
6
This is a joke. Almost nobody voted so how can anyone be appointed as a commissioner? Nobody wants police commissioners so they should just scrap this worthless idea.
4
Wait, did that happen already?
I completely missed it.
3
I voted at around 6pm last night and at a central polling station in the middle of a busy town. After eleven hours of polling being open my vote was number 40.
3
From the editors picks:
Alba 1 Hour ago
Claims of apathy infuriate me. The majority did not vote because this is not something we should be voting for. This should not be a political role, but that is what it will become. Rather than discussing who to vote for, discussions I was part of focused on whether not voting or spoiling the ballot paper was the most effective way of registering dissatisfaction with the whole process.
Is this a Redditor? There was a big post on it here yesterday,.
1
Whose bright idea was it to replace 2000 police with an elected police commissioner ? especially a police commissioner that practically no one wanted ?! did DC have his brain in for a service when that one went through ?
1
10%-20% turnout. Poor show my fellow countrymen!
-3
These figures include spoilt ballot papers.
11
Do they? On the BBC website it says that spoilt papers are not included.
1
The article must have evolved over time. When it was originally posted it said they were included in the turnout figures.
2
Empty ballot boxes found: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-gloucestershire-20358207
FFS Northerners, vote!!!
-4
Gloucestershire is in the North?
...really, fairy, really?!
6
Why should they?
5
I was the only person in my workplace that voted.
Was a bit shocked really, my great-grandpappy didn't storm Normandy so you could sit on your arses playing Black Ops II instead of voting. At least spoil your ballots!
-6
Well it shouldn't take long.