General Chat

!!!!Like!!!!!!

^*Likes*^

so John, you're disappointed with the quality of this debate are you - well tough, and as for accessing info through the internet, how many senior citizens do you know who have internet access, and even if they do, why on earth should the electorate need access to the internet to get the information. In this area, North Cardiff there were no leaflets informing us of the names of the candidates and when I looked on the internet today it gave me three candidates, but according to the BBC Wales news tonight there were four!!!

Now the powers that be are wondering why there was such a low turnout - well if they can't work that out for themselves they are in the wrong job

I am certainly not apathetic about voting, but I will not - nay cannot - vote in an election when I have no knowledge whatever of even the names of the candidates let alone their qualifications for the job

Get off your very high horse and come down to planet earth!!!

Roy,

His face was a picture as I don't think he was too pleased he had lost.
He gave a not very nice speech and if I had been there I would have told him to grow up and take defeat on the chin...

So glad your pleased... :-D :-D :-D :-D

Sue In Leeds, Made my day

Lord Prescott has been defeated by Tory Matthew Grove. Lord Prescott has failed in his bid to become police commissioner for Humberside

Love it :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D

Roy :-D

Just read through the whole of this thread and I am amazed.

First, 15% is just a bit short of the vote in the Glasgow and Cardiff by elections yesterday. So arguments about nothing sent out, didn't want the job etc would not apply to the by-elections. People are plainly very apathetic about voting at all these days.

Two, it was extremely easy (as Jude pointed out, I think) to find out about these candidates.

Three, we have had police authorities in all these areas costing a small fortune - and for what? Who knows who they were? Presumably the cost of one public voice in a police area will be much cheaper and much more effective.

Very disappointed with the quality of most of the debate on this thread. Much below your usual standard, imho. :-( :-( :-(

In Glos the independent candidate who is glos born and bred and ex police got in after a second count between him and the Tory candidate

Humberside has a Coonservative Police Commisioner tonight
.

So far 9 of the 41 areas have elected Independant candidates. So it does seem that many of those who did vote did not do so for party reasons.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-20354636

Well, we had information sent with our voting cards, there have been photos and information about the candidates and their pledges in our local press too. We went and voted......certainly didn't want one candidate who didn't seem at all suitable on their past record. The Police and Crime Commissioners have a different job to the Police Commissioner, seperate roles, and the PCC panels are replacing the old Police Authority Boards and with less people. What I don't like is the fact that these new panels have less independent people than the old Police Authorities, which seems like a backward step to me. Although their job is to listen to the public and respond to their needs, I am a bit worried that they might focus on the things that they 'want'.

What an awful voting system too, where one candidate can get 49% of the votes and not win because they haven't got more than 50%!! There should be none of these second choices.......whoever gets the most votes should win I think.

I didn't vote as I don't think a Police Commissioner is needed plus the amount of money they are going to get a year is better spent on more police on the street NOT in cars.
And also we didn't even know the names of who the candidates were never mind any spiel from them telling us what they were going to change.

In West Yorkshire seemingly just come on the news that the turnout was less than 14%.
Seemigly the counts are still going on round here so maybe find out tomorrow who got in.
Also by the sounds of it the 2 I heard were standing were either Tory or Labour.
Now as I understood this job is not supposed to be Political but pull the pother one and it will ring...

As other posters have pointed out, a Commissioner needs to be appointed by interview to get the best person for the job, non-political : but if it is to be done by election then the CVs of the candidates should be published at the very least.

In our area only the UKIP candidate sent a leaflet. There was one independent and the rest were party hacks.

I happen to have worked with one of the Thames Valley candidates who is a magistrate and had been a deputy chairman of their national organisation so he WOULD have been qualified, he didn't get in. Don't know about the other chancers.

Looks like Essex, my County got the second lowest turnout so far on the Beeb results: 12.8% with only West Midlands on 12% below them.

well just read that the independent WAS elected here, the only one to make a real effort to get his message across , not one of the political parties and is known for his community work with youngsters through sport. He has also pledged to give £20k of his first years salary to a charitable trust supporting victims of crime. So if it had to go to someone I'm glad it was him.

One of our representatives was an ex policeman Jan

I'm beginning to think there was no electiion in my area Ann.
We didn't receive any information as to who the candidates were or where the polling booth was.

My OH and I did not vote either for all the reasons given above, and the added issue that it was interesting that a great many of our close friends are retired policemen,and they thought it was a fiasco weeks ago.75million could have been spent on the police per se, not on someone (if you were lucky enough to know them we did not in our area) . It appears that it is political, most are candidates for one party or another, and who is going to run this...not them but the civil servants behind them,,,,for non e of them are ex police so what do they know !!

Island, I do think that the candidates have been a bit complacent, or, maybe they were covering too large an area. Nobody seems to have thought ahead and realised that people wouldn't have a clue what it was all about. As Ann Cardiff (I think) said, not everyone has access to the internet and the info in and on the media was too little too late.

"Turnout averages less than 15%, with one polling station taking NO votes"

I find it hard to believe the latter was entirely due to silent protest. More likely silent candidates. The whole thing appears to have been a complete shambles.

I do think that was the mistake they made, having the politiccal parties as candidates. Apparently it cost £5000 to put up as a candidate and the political parties all funded their representatives. The ordinary person was not able to afford that money which is why political parties dominated the election.

Looks like the electorate have voted with their feet...
They have kept them firmly planted in the home.

Democracy = Might is Right, and the Might of the people have voted for a non starter to this event.

Anyway, I might be wrong, but I thought this election was to vote for a Police Commissioner...
NOT for a political Party as seems to be the case.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/law-and-order/9681461/Police-commissioner-election-live-results-map.html