Badly Handled Election ...

[Sukerkin]

... and it's not even here yet.

A very bad idea in progress this one I think. Uninformed and, it has to be said, largely unenthused people being expected to vote meaningfully for their PCC (Police and Crime Commissioner) is a recipe for an outcome that is almost guaranteed to be undemocratic. I am one of the few likely to be interested (I'm getting more and more invested in our system of governance and policing as I get older) and I have to wait until October 26th before I can even find out who the candidates are and the election is 15th November!

http://www.choosemypcc.org.uk/

 

[Dirty Dog]

Difficult to make an informed choice in such a short time. On the other hand, elections in the US go on for wayyyy too much time before the actual election.

 

[Carol]

Unfortunately the city where I live has a history of rather corrupt politics going all the way up to Mayor, and part of that corruption included the Mayor's office tossing the police department around in ways that aren't conducive to fairness, let alone law and order.

As a result of this, a police commission was established in the early 1980s to provide a degree of separation between the mayor's office and the city PD. Most of the folks older than me that were here at the time agree the commission created a needed improvement in the political climate. However, the old-timers and younger folks alike have questioned whether a 3-person panel of people appointed by the Mayor was truly creating the separation needed. So far the questioning has been nothing more than that -- there has been no effort to turn this in to a democratically elected panel. I'm pleased to see that the move towards more democracy is taking place over there, even though the circumstances are not quite ideal.

It is unfortunate that many people to not make the effort to become better informed, especially for the less "famous" positions. Here in the Northeast, it is more common for judges to be appointed, but in the south where my mother lives, it is more common for judges to be elected. I have heard people talk about certain "methodologies" about voting for judges -- throw them all out, vote for party X, vote for the Y candidate, etc -- when my mom hears stuff like this she goes ballistic. "This is where our laws come from and people regard it as little more than a game!" Can't say I blame her!

 

[Tez3]

I think the reason the time scale is so short is because no one is interested and no one who is sane wants the job! The Tories ( the right wing Conservative lot) are doing their best to make sure the rich get richer and the poor get poorer, over-governed and more demoralised everyday. They are runing the NHS into the ground, short changing then sacking our military ( so much for the promise wounded soldiers can stay int he army, they were the first to be kicked out) they are running this country into the ground, we may never recover from this Tory government's ham fisted upper class omnishambles of a wrecking spree. they say we are 'in it together'..no, I don't think we are. I along with many of my colleagues are losing our jobs over the next two years, they are getting rid of the lowere grades in the Civil Service but keeping the top civil servants, the ones who make a real mess of the contracts for the train companies etc costing the tax payers hundreds of millions of pounds. This Police commisioner is just another 'jobs for the boys' routine.
At the Tory Part conference they were on about laws that said people could defend themselves if attacked, all hot air as many legal experts and police pointed out we do actually have those laws already, I guess they hadn't read them, probably too busy swearing at police officers and calling them '********** plebs'

This is the party that will cut crime....perhaps by reining in it's own criminals http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/sep/24/pleb-jobe-tories-flashman-thinking
http://www.newstatesman.com/blogs/p...-grayling-actually-read-law-household-defence