So, after the actual expenditure of £75 million in the biggest electoral farce in history, we end up with Labour's Mark Burns-Williamson as police commissioner for West Yorkshire, a man who polled 114,736 first preference votes from an electorate of just over 1.6 million, giving him an effective mandate of 7.1 percent.

What makes this worse is that Burns-Williamson was already a member for 13 years of the county's police authority which he now replaces. Thus he moves up to get 100,000+ a year for doing something he was already doing, all on the basis of a mandate from less than one fifteenth of the electorate.

The magnanimous winner, however, managed to spare a little time to be "critical" of the government over how the elections had been held. It was this, in his view, resulted in a low turnout. But, he says, "It is now up to me and the other 40 police and crime commissioners elected today to establish themselves and legitimise this post by listening to everyone who relies on their local police force".

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Since we have not yet revealed our tactics, nor indeed have we yet set up the structures which would enable us to roll them out, it is very clever of you to divine that our "tactics shall fall FAR short".

The drugs Tsar didn't work and my bet is neither will these.

Detecting crime is a cause which requires self motivation of those charged with the duty and changes in the law and what goes on inside police stations dooms it to failure.

In 1967/68 I spent 12 months on a murder enquiry, the first fortnight with paid overtime, the rest hundreds of hours done willingly for the good of the job, it was expected of us.

I didn't even go and spoil my ballot paper, the whole exercise was a waste of time and money and doomed to fail. I gave up having faith in effective policing 25 years ago!

On the other hand, you've legitimised the illegitimate, accepting the government proposal on its terms. But a pig's ear is still a pig's ear whether it has a party political apparatchik or an independent. I have made a statement that I do not accept their terms ... I do not accept the legitimacy of the West Yorkshire Police and I do not accept the remit of the police commissioner. My spoilt vote says "not in my name".

I don't know what they were like in your day, but I regard West Yorkshire's finest as a bunch of inept, uninformed (barely) thugs. But apart from these minor defects, I have made it very clear on this blog that, as an advocate of true localism, you cannot have a "local" police force serving 2.2 million people, and neither can a police force servicing such a population be properly accountable to the communities within it. As I have said, there is no single community of interest that could be properly described as a demos, which means it cannot be democratically accountable - and it isn't.

http://www.eureferendum....ogview.aspx?blogno=83335

As such, the calibre of the police commissioner is an irrelevance. The structure and nature of the force is inherently flawed and no individual can make up for those flaws.

Further, I have seriously to take issue with your assertion that they should be accountable only to the courts. The Peelian principles of policing are that we have a civilian police force, of the people recruited from among them. They must be accountable to the people they serve, or they simply become an army of occupation - which is roughly as I see them at the moment.

Edited by user 19 November 2012 14:42:16(UTC)  | Reason: Not specified

I mostly agree with the above but a police constable, and that is their base source of their authority, is a Crown appointment answerable to the laws of the country. If it were not so who would deal with the dishonest MP, local government officer or even Police Commissioner?

Nothings going to change so I best shut up.

My point was about the separation of power of enforcement from the executive which in theory I always understood gave an individual officer the ability to do the job without fear or favour to anyone and to be answerable to the courts.

Similarly, Juries are, directed by Judges only on the law, but are the sole arbiters of fact and can in the instance of perverse law bring in a verdict not in accordance with it. Something, Corpus Juris, the EU would love to change?

I would be the first to agree the police need sorting out. Police Commissioners are not the answer, neither is political interference at an even more local level. (Do you know who I am officer?) Unlike vocal members of the public and politicians I have no idea how the trust and respect of the past can be regained, that is if they still have the skills!