Britannia Radio

Police commissioners: not ****ing local!   Thursday 15 November 2012 You can always trust the loss-making Guardian to get it wrong, I wrote in my last piece. But hadn't then accounted for the dismal Failygraph which seems to have made as its mission a determination to lead the entire media pack in the race to the bottom. Thus did it offer yesterday: They [police commissioners] deserve, to begin with, as robust a mandate as possible, which is why it is of great importance that people get out and vote tomorrow. In doing so, they will begin to make policing once again the local service it is supposed to be. Today it offers its pages to the dubious John Yates, former UK Head of Counter-Terrorism, to pontificate on police commissioners, telling us that "the PCCs are a good idea, but poorly executed and at the wrong time". "In terms of policy", Yates of the Yard dribbles, "the Government are right to allow people a say in how their local area is policed, and to provide someone they can hold to account". Of course, what immediately screams out - where we are to have a police commissioner for the area of West Yorkshire - is that 2.2 million people is not ****ing local. Not in a million years can a police force covering nearly 800 square miles, "serving" over two million people be considered local. There are over 100 countries with populations smaller than West Yorkshire. As for "holding to account", how can one person hold such a system to account, when the structures are so fundamentally flawed, and where the people, as such, have no ability to strike back? But that is the Failygraph for you. This moronic fare is on offer from a paper which, alongside the media in general, tells us they are the guardians of our "democracy". And this is why we need the "freedom of the press"? What we do need is the Harrogate Agenda. UPDATES: Low turnout seems universal. At just gone one o'clock, I was the fifteenth through my local polling station, and I'd only come to spoil my vote. Another forum member reports 20 when a general election would have been "deep into the hundreds". At 1400hr–ish, a friend in Wales reported being voter 27 out of 981 in a ward that normally does 50 percent-plus. It seems we have a voters' strike in progress – the only sensible response to such a cockeyed idea. "Surveys suggest that the national turnout could be as low as 15 percent, says the Independent, "a figure that would fuel accusations that the victorious candidates have a minimal democratic mandate". And how many heads will roll, do you think? COMMENT THREAD Richard North 15/11/2012

EU politics: resistance is futile   Thursday 15 November 2012 This is worse than we thought - although, will we notice any difference? COMMENT THREAD  Richard North 15/11/2012

Police commissioners: spoil the vote   Thursday 15 November 2012 Watching briefly the TV news last night, I saw a vox pop on the police commissioner elections. Interestingly, the first lady to speak said she would spoil her paper, something which I had determined to do and which many people have told me they will do. Newspapers are clearly catching that mood, the loss-making Guardian thus telling us that "apathy is the expected response from 40 million voters". Actually, you can always trust the Guardian to get it wrong. This is not so much "apathy" as indifference – a slightly different thing. Elected police commissioners are not the answer to whatever problems are besetting the police, and simply reflect politicians' love affair with elections and their misplaced belief that they necessarily impart democracy. Speaking of my own force in West Yorkshire, I am not convinced that any amount of tinkering is going to improve an operation which is required to service 2.2 million people spread over nearly 800 square miles, headquartered in Wakefield, a city nearly twenty miles away from us by road. In this context, Bradford once had its own local police force, whence policing priorities were determined by the people of Bradford, represented by their councillors, and it was the local people who paid the bills. Supposedly local policing from a bunker near the city centre, with priorities dictated an elected commissioner, isn't going to make the slightest bit of difference to us. What we actually need is much smaller police forces, on the back of a two-tier structure. Very few countries have a one-tier operation, and for very good reason. They don't work very well. We need our own city police, with a national police force to deal with serious crime, security and the like – and to keep an eye on the locals, rooting out the all too prevalent corruption. That itself would be a major improvement because the biggest failing is the lack of an independent complaints system. If you complain about the police, unless it is a major issue, they investigate the complaint themselves. If you don't accept the findings, you are entitled to a review, which is carried out by the same officers who investigated the original complaint. When all else fails – which it does most times – you can then go to the independent Police Complaints Commission, which will ask the local police force to investigate itself. In effect, there is no point in complaining. The force knows it can get away with rubbish service because there is no outsider looking in. All I can see of this current idea is more of the same, with still more useless mouths to feed, a ridiculously wasteful exercise that will achieve nothing at all at best and, possibly, make things considerably worse. Hence, later today I will wander down to the polling station and spoil my vote. It is the only sensible thing to do for something I didn't ask for, don't want and resent having to pay for. COMMENT THREAD Richard North 15/11/2012