Vote Independent For PCC

I've previously blogged about tomorrow's Police and Crime Commissioner elections for 2020UK but, on a more personal note, I wanted to explain why I will be voting for the independent candidate in our area tomorrow. To quote myself in that post (a very immodest thing to do but...):

I wouldn’t really have minded going through a list of independent candidates and seeing who was best suited to the role. I would’ve looked for local knowledge, experience and reputation. Instead, this is all being fought along party lines. It will become another party battle and, no doubt, you’ll end up with people being chosen for their party affiliations and not their ability to do the job. I don’t think I’m in a minority when I say that I don’t like the idea of politics seeping into our police forces any more than it already has. We need our services to be independent...Independent candidates were no doubt put off by the prohibitive registration necessities – each had to give a £5,000 deposit, something easily manageable by the four major parties but difficult for independent candidates to manage. I think there should have been a lower threshold to try and coax more people into standing.

My main reason for voting independent is that I don't think these elections should be political in any way. The Labour leaflet that came through our door ONLY talks about the central government cuts. The headline is: 'The Tories are cutting over 2,000 West Yorkshire Police Staff - on Thursday send them a message... Vote Labour.' Right, okay. Whilst I agree that police cuts are unhelpful, I DO NOT see how a Labour PCC is going to be able to 'fight against' them, as the Labour candidate proclaims in his leaflet. A PCC does not have that kind of power. They are promising a battle they can't follow through on. What they should be doing instead is working within the framework they've got. I look at West Yorkshire's independent candidate, Cedric Christie, and I see that effort.

Christie worked as a front-line police officer for over thirty years. He claims to 'understand the real problems' and, you know, I believe him. There's no party machinery pushing him forward but he feels passionately enough about the role to stand - and given the prohibitive deposit mentioned above I see that as quite a commitment. His election priorities can be read on his website but there's nothing there that can't be delivered, unlike the Labour candidate vowing to fight a battle he can't fight.

Tomorrow, I will be voting for Cedric Christie as my preferred candidate in the PCC elections for the West Yorkshire area. I hope other people will join me but, remember, even if you feel a loyalty to a party in these elections, you can still cast a vote for Christie as your second preference.

Christie's website is here.

Farewell 2,500 Police Officers

The shocking headline about the full impact of police cuts has thankfully not been masked by the on-going phone-hacking scandal. That (however important) story has so far covered up the first rumblings of movement to outside providers in the NHS and the ever-increasing concern about the future of the Eurozone. Luckily, these police figures haven't slipped into the ether.

34,000 jobs in total are to be lost from our police service by 2015. 16,100 will be police staff, admin workers etc, and up to 1,800 will be community support officers. The rest will be police officers, 2,500 of which are considered front-line. We were assured that front-line services would be shielded from the cuts as much as possible. Losing police officers from our streets doesn't exactly tally with that, does it?

Look at the scenario. While cutting the number of police officers you are also cutting the number of admin staff. Doesn't this leave many of the remaining officers with piles of administration to do themselves? Yes, the Coalition have pledged to cut red-tape and admin wherever possible - and this is long overdue - but it is not going to happen overnight. Unless you can convince hapless bureaucrats to concede that all paperwork is not essential then the problem will continue. And, as things stand, as well as losing police officers, the ones left will be devoting extortionate amounts of time to tasks that keep them from the streets.

What about the bigger picture? Research suggests that burglary and robbery statistics could rise by 3%. It's not difficult to see why. Few jobs are being created in this country and, when they are, 80% of them are going to people born outside of the UK. While I'm not suggesting that unemployment leads directly into crime, it is easy to see how desperation may escalate.

Cuts need to be made. We're told this so often that our ears ache. But reneging on promises to protect front-line public services is not going to inspire public confidence in the people running our country. Theresa May, the Home Secretary, believes that the cuts to the budget doesn't necessarily mean that front-line services have to suffer. As with many of these cuts, the government blames ideology for the way cuts are implemented - it is political point scoring they say. Every time a Labour council is forced to cut services, a Tory council proudly asserts that they kept they services running. Of course, this has nothing to do with many Labour inner-city constituencies being deprived and Tory areas being affluent. Who could suggest such a thing?

Repeatedly, the country tells our officials that we want them to be tough on crime. An outcry against trimming prison sentences won a change of heart. How is taking police officers from our streets or forcing them to do more paperwork being tough on crime?

Telegraph article.

Guardian article.