Why I Intend To Vote For My PCC

The Police & Crime Commissioner (PCC) elections are on this coming Thursday.

Many people, including serving and retired police officers have encouraged people not to vote in the election at all. The purpose, as I understand it, is to carry a message of low turnout back to the Home Office and Theresa May to show that the "public" don't want elected police commissioners.

Assuming that my interpretation is correct, I suspect that this would probably reflect the public mood. The percentage of the population that actively want PCCs would, I believe, be a vanishingly small number. A lot less than 10% but that's just my feel from listening to media coverage and from social media such as Twitter.

My own position is that I think that the PCC concept is flawed, foolish, unrealistic, unwanted and has the potential to create enormously damaging situations up and down the country. It's a costly waste of money at a time when experienced police officers are being forced to retire, despite the desperate claims of the Minister Damian Green claiming on BBC Question Time last week that it was ok as the costs of the PCC elections came from a different budget.

This strategy, of encouraging non-participation, omits one crucial element. The Coalition Government long ago abandoned any sort of pretence of representing the public view. The only agenda that matters is their own, whatever that may be. Unless criticism or opposition is vociferous and loudly carried in the media, they will just press ahead regardless; arrogantly assured of their own superiority. The Government in general, and the Home Office under Theresa May in particular, has no sense of shame. It will press ahead with whatever crackpot scheme, or defend any lie no matter how preposterous, as May has shown time & time again.

So why vote? A Labour candidate was recently asked on Twitter how a Labour candidate could stand when Labour opposed the whole PCC concept. The answer to both questions is simple.

The elections will happen on Thursday. Whether you vote or not. Whether Labour put up a candidate or not. As it happens, there are no "extreme" candidates (by which I mean EDL or BNP or suchlike) in my area. However, I immediately discount the Tory candidate on principle as we know what Tory police policy contains. There are a handful of Independent candidates. One of those could not (for some reason unknown) manage to supply even a photo or brief statement of intent to the website www.choosemypcc.com so I have no option but to exclude him. He seems a nice enough bloke (we have spoken briefly on Twitter) but I know nothing about him. The other Independents either don't carry enough gravitas for the role in my opinion, or there's just something that doesn't quite click about them for me.

My vote on Thursday will be going to John Prescott. Yes, he's a politician, but he has experience of life, as a working man. He's managed even larger budgets than the Humberside Area, and I know he knows the area and the people well. He may not be perfect, or all things to all people, but he seems to me to be the only viable candidate in my area.

You may not agree with the PCC concept. You might like to send a low turnout message to Theresa May. Mrs May is arrogant enough to not care if turnout nationally is 5% or 85%. PCCs are here, and they're here now. Even if you can't find a candidate you endorse 100%, then find the one that you think will do the least damage and vote for them. It's not a positive message, I know, but it's more positive than not voting at all. Come Friday evening, your area will have a PCC whether you voted or not, whether you wanted one or not. So please, pick the best of the available candidates and vote. Not voting, and getting a disastrous PCC via a low turnout seems to me to be a Pyrrhic victory that will do no one any good. Least of all you.