Sunday 28 October 2012

Hear your police commissioner candidates

The two politicians and the two independent candidates for the post of police and crime commissioner (PCC) for the South Wales area were interviewed for half-an-hour by Vaughan Roderick on BBC-Wales' "Sunday Supplement" this morning. The Web page for this programme is at http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01nly4r.

The outcome illustrated many of the flaws in the whole Conservative experiment. (It should be remembered that the United States of America, where the system originated, has given up on electing their police commissioners.) I would single out Alun Michael for an unashamedly party political approach - virtually all his answers included an attack on the coalition government. Caroline Jones, to be fair, began with a non-party pitch, but was dragged into a partisan fight by Michael's approach. One is still disappointed by her support for not only the PCC concept, but also the bias in the electoral process to those candidates with money behind them.

There is a BBC summary of the candidates here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-19509951

The candidates' web-sites are:

http://www.verderame.co.uk/

http://www.alunmichael.net/

http://www.carolinejones.org.uk/

http://michaelabaker.co.uk/index.htm


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