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Police Commisioners
BillieTheBot
Posts: 8,721 Bot
So, what do you all think now it's election day?
Unfortunately, I can't tell you what I think until the end of the day in case I unduly influence you.....
Unfortunately, I can't tell you what I think until the end of the day in case I unduly influence you.....
Beep boop. I'm a bot.
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Comments
I was going to spoil my ballot, because I felt under-informed but didn't want to not turn out, but I changed my mind. I did some research and then voted for an independent candidate. If the govt must leave these decisions in the hands of an ill-informed electorate we can at least try to keep it away from party politics.
Totally.
Turnout seems painfully low so far, 15.8% in wiltshire (where the candidate elected is supported by the conservawanks) and approx 20% reported so far elsewhere.
I'm part of the 84.2%.
One of the candidates felt that having lived his whole life within a mile of where he was born was a good selling point - I suspect that was cut'n'pasted from his local councillor stuff without any thought.
Personally, I prefered the police authority - which some of the candidates stepped down from in order to run
Incidentally, previous peace-time low turnout was 23% in 1999
Nor did I! Us Londoners have Bo-Jo instead.
I voted independent but only because I want it to be apolitical; I thought all the candidates were shit. There were also a number of scary 'bought for' candidates were running where the campaigns were paid for by organisations supporting G4S and their ilk.
If it only costs £50 grand to run a campaign for your own man who can then guarantee support for a £5m contract - go and do it! Simples.
Its a shambles and the government should say sorry to the electorate.
I am the 13.3% and so is piccolo. Some bloke as compared this to London mayoral elections, saying we'll get used to it. Any thoughts?
The problem is (I am the 17.1% in Glos) that there isn't the public desire for PCC, and there isn't a real tangible link between vote and 'what it means'. Its basically just voting for the party you like the most (currently, I hate all of them, as a previous new labour and lib dem supporter).
The only people who really care are the people who are running - similarly, at my student union years ago, there were 12 positions open with only about 1500 people voting in total (again, about 15% turnout).
Out of those 12 positions, only 4-5 were actually contested, the rest were 'meh, nobody else is running for it... may as well'. I actually proposed to the SU that we cut down to just 3-4 elected positions who would form a committee who could then appoint people to the other positions based on a critical evaluation of their ability rather than because they ran for it and nobody else wanted to. We were the university where the woman's officer was kicked out of the SU because she was actually a violent sycophant and later assaulted another student on campus who she didn't see eye to eye with.
The problem is when the electorate cares so little you can have any tom, dick or harry run for the position, and scarily, get elected.
Maybe next time it comes up if I can raise £5k I'll run a campaign.
The problem is the skewness of different voters and their propensity to vote.
If in general election, 90% of BNP voters turnout, but 60% of general populous turnout, they still get a tiny share of the vote.
In the PCC, 90% of BNP voters turnout, but only 5% of general population turnout, they end up getting a much bigger slice of the pie.
Could lead to some scary results, but we'll see. Not many have £5k in their pocket to run. Save perhaps for Mervyn Barrett.
Indy beat the tory in every seat except for the countryside which landslid it for the conservative lady. (Who doesn't live in Gloucestershire and wants to cut the police's budget in line with DC's wishes, and get a nice Spa day courtesy of G4S for her trouble)
Still, she didn't get 50%, so its going to second preference.
Here's hoping the lib-dem voters hate the tories more the independent.
I looked at the link ShyBoy posted though- this country has some right artists!
It was one of the tories pledges of local government. They are now saying 'Ah, well, people just havent come round to it yet'.
They don't realise that most people don't want the conservatives or their policies, but didn't want to vote for labour. So four years of some shit up and down the country is what we have to put up with. This is one of their bits of shit.
Next general election they are gone though. Better the devil you know, etc.
Our new PCC, with 5% of the vote (including second choice) is proud of the fact he has spent most of his life within 1 mile of his Birthplace
They were in three terms last time, despite "nobody" wanting them.
I would have liked to have seen a much larger turn out, but with everyone spoiling their ballots. That way we show there is no mandate. The way it has transpired. People just don't seem to care or understand. The information has been out there, and I reckon that a lot of people (I'm not saying all) just simply don't care at all. If they did care, or knew what was going on then there might have been a lot of spoilt ballots.
I wonder how high the general election turn out is the next time round, with quotes of people saying record numbers are pissed off with the current government, I bet we don't see record numbers of voters. Higher perhaps, but nothing massively more than we have seen in recent years.
Neither am I saying that if people don't vote then they deserve what they get, far from it. However, if you see it fit to complain to high heaven, just make sure you actually use your vote (more so aimed at the wider general election).
I voted for the labour candidate, for 3 reasons. He has an extremely good track record as a local councillor and he did serve for a time on the police authority. And looking through his manifesto, he didn't make any wild promises, he backed his promises up with evidence and timescales and finally by all accounts he's a nice bloke.
The other candidates, one of the indys is barking. Completely ignoring the millions we've yet to lose from the budget he was making wild claims about hiring hundreds of more cops and opening custody suites and police stations. The second indy was an ex-cop, but I'd never heard of him and his manifesto was just a cut and paste job and the final candidate was a tory who I didn't vote for on principal.
I have thought of an advantage to the low turnout, I feel like my vote actually counted for something.
However, the whole thing is a bad idea. Even if Indys get in, it's still a political game to them. They will mostly have made wild promises (I heard of one saying he'd ensure under 18s were given a curfew....) and will think they have inumerable powers to control the police, when in reality they set the budget and they can hire/fire the chief constable who has to be a cop anyway.
People will gradually learn what they can do and what promises are crap. Setting a budget and being able to hire and fire the Chief Constable are prtty hefty powers
Sure some of those turned out will be not be very good (or more likely will turn out to be very good for the police, but not everyone else as they go native), but they'll be replaced at the next election
Yes, there's some lessons to learn on turnout (put them on the same day as local elections) and a London biased media is always less interested in going-ons once you leave the M25
I'm glad that some have. I find it disgusting the amount of politicians who have seldom visited the areas they're running for, but 'Oh, quick! A vote! Better run for it!'
That was the 1980s/90s when labour were much further left and most people felt they were close enough to communists. We need a credible centre-left alternative. I am not trying to descend into a huge debate, but the conservatives didn't win a majority at the last election - they needed a coalition after the disillusionment with labour split the centre to centre-left vote. I'm not saying that disillusionment will stay - but a lot of people voted Not-Labour, rather than Conservative, and those people would probably also say even if they want 'Not-Labour', Labour is better than Conservative.
The conservatives can win the next election but there would need to be a tangible shift towards what (majority of) the voting public actually want, but within the party the backbenchers and those rugged good old boys clubs don't want to see any priority shifts away from getting them and their mates lower taxes and better lucrative contracts. This is David Cameron's issue. Does he lose the faith of his party, or does he lose the faith of the public? He's a very good politician and may be able to squeeze through the middle - he is the same person who managed to get any talk of PR/AV/etc. off the agenda for the next half-century and not to be underestimated. But it's a tall order and mainly so far they are only clinging to the semblence that labour are still a disorganised and barely credible alternative. Tl;dr all the parties are shit.
Check ukpollingreport for more information on the matter though.