Politics on your Doorstep

Posted on 03/09/2012 by samchapman

When TopOfTheCops covered the difficulties attending the selection of Michael Mates as Conservative PCC candidate in Hampshire, there was a flurry of responses. That flurry was not from Hampshire though, and not from Surrey, which had also been mentioned in passing, but from Sussex. A number of, as far as I can tell, quite independent individuals in Sussex Conservatives were sufficiently bothered by problematic Conservative selection procedures to try to draw my attention to this one.

Being a Northerner, my knowledge of Sussex and its geography is quite limited, so apologies for not picking up on some matters previously. Early on I had been told the selection meeting would be in Brighton on 14 July, and the date turned out to be right, but I didn’t cotton on to the significance of the final selection venue being announced as Burgess Hill. Please keep in mind that my only previous encounter with Burgess Hill is a passing reference in a poem by John Betjeman.

Not so for the winning candidate, Katy Bourne, though. Cllr Bourne represents the Cuckfield ward in Mid-Sussex.  Should you choose to head over to the Election Maps site, choose Mid-Sussex District Council, search for the postcode of the selection venue (RH15 8WA), and then enable the Ward Map layer, (as I imagine most of you will have done a long time ago) you will see that the Triangle Leisure Centre appears to be but a stone’s throw from Cllr Bourne’s ward.

That’s right, with all of Sussex to choose from, an area covered by two County Councils and a Unitary Authority, the Sussex Conservatives Police Authority Organising Committee somehow managed to choose a venue right on the doorstep of one of the three candidates for the nomination. 

I’ve done some sums. By my reckoning, the venue is 4 miles from Cllr Bourne’s home address, but clearly that’s OK, because obviously Sussex Conservatives would go to great lengths to choose a neutral venue for such a contest.

Wouldn’t they?

Well, it turns out that the venue is roughly 40 and 50 miles from the homes of the other two candidates, and therefore from the homes of their most natural supporters, which just goes to emphasise the level of bias inherent in the selection of such a venue.

This is quite important. They didn’t have to search far and wide for Conservative candidates in Sussex. There were 12-14 reported to me. They even didn’t put the Chair of the Police Authority, Steve Waight, on the shortlist, so packed was it with Tories who realised that this is pretty much as close as it gets to a safe seat, and who could be forgiven for thinking that the selection meeting was the real election for this £85,000 post.

I’m told there are something like 11,000 Conservative party members eligible to vote in this election in Sussex. That would have made for a good postal ballot to engage members in advance of the main election. So how many showed up on the day? About 390 apparently, although the number diminished as the day wore on. A batch apparently left when Anthony Kimber was eliminated, perhaps not appreciating that they could vote to choose between the remaining candidates before leaving. And given that he hails from the same area as the other defeated candidate, Peter Jones, it’s possible that the prospect of a 50 mile drive home may have drawn some support away from Jones at a key time, while Cllr Bourne’s near neighbours contemplated the stroll back to their nearby homes.

In the end Cllr Bourne secured what I am told was a slim majority over Cllr Jones, so there is every indication that the bizarre choice of venue had a critical effect on the result, and that a biased sample of less than 200 Conservative party members have chosen the Police and Crime Commissioner for 1.5 million people.

I have met and spoken to Cllr Bourne a few months ago. She seems like a personable and effective young lady, but any candidate favoured by such an unfair advantage finds themselves in an impossible position, even if they get every vote in the hall, which is why a most basic requirement of the selection process is that it should be even-handed to the various candidates.

Of course, I could be wrong about the critically unfair nature of the venue. To demonstrate my error all Sussex Conservatives would have to do is publish the membership and turnout figures for this election from each of the 13 Sussex Conservative Associations I am told could participate in this election. That would tell its own story and be a useful move toward open politics.

For completeness I should tell you that I have also received a number of other serious allegations which are difficult for me to investigate at a distance, but in my view, whoever is Conservative Party Chairman at the end of the week would be best advised to open an investigation into instances where selection procedures appear to have been handled badly, with a view to resolving the issues with a quick, open and thorough investigation. It’s getting beyond a joke.

Posted in Resources, Selecting Candidates | Tagged | 12 Comments

Avon and Somerset – Expenses and Allowances

Posted on 02/09/2012 by samchapman

This is the start of the new TopOfTheCops initiative to collate expenses and allowances claims for candidates' previous experience of public office. To learn more or to give any general feedback on this initiative go to the 'Meet the Professionals' post, saving comments here for those relevant to Avon and Somerset.

 

Pete Levy – Liberal Democrat

Mr Levy became a Bristol Councillor and a member of Avon and Somerset Police Authority in 2010, and therefore has partial year claims for 2010-11 and 2011-12 and no claim for 2009-10.

According to Bristol City Council he claimed the Basic Councillor Allowance of £10,188.44 in 2010-11 and £11,416 in 2011-12. He did not claim any expenses for either of these years, though other Councillors did.

According to Avon and Somerset Police Authority he claimed the Basic Member Allowance of £7,109.23 in 2010-11 and £9,444 in 2011-12, but also had an additional Special Responsibility Allowance in 2011-12 of £2,358. Again, he claimed no expenses, though other members did.

This gives Peter Levy total income from these posts of £17,297.67 in 2010-11 and £23,218 in 2011-12.

Ken Maddock – Conservative

Cllr Maddock was Leader of Somerset Council for most of 2009-2012 and a member of Mendip District Council till 2011. He stepped down from the leader's role to fight the PCC selection.

According to Somerset County Council (latest year here, earlier years supplied after FOI) he claimed Basic Allowance of £9,639, £9,847.57 and £9,879.96 in each of the three years, and Special Responsibility Allowance of £24,262.57, £29,567.78 and £29,640 respectively. He had the highest travel and subsistence claims in the County Council (not in itself unusual for a Council leader) of £4,114.13, £4,960.99 and £5,499.65 respectively.

Mendip District Council has him claiming basic allowance of £3,605.04, £3,460.80 and £367,05 in each of the 3 years, and travel expenses of £98.80 and £102.80 in the first 2 of those years.

This gives Ken Maddock total income from these posts of £41,719.54 in 2009-10, £47,939.94 in 2010-11 and £45,386.66 in 2011-12.

Dr John Savage CBE – Labour

Dr John Savage replaced Bob Ashford as Labour Candidate. Dr Savage has had a long career in the business community in the South West and has a long list of registered interests, many of which appear to be unpaid. From them I have extracted the following paid public appointments:- Chairman of University Hospitals Bristol NHS Foundation Trust, and Board Member of the recently disestablished South-West Regional Development Agency.

According to the published Annual Reports of the NHS Trust, Dr Savage was remunerated in a pay band of £50,000-£54,000 for both 2009/10 and 2010/11. TopOfTheCops is awaiting confirmation of the 2011/12 figure, but is using the same working figure in the meantime. TopOfTheCops has also asked if expenses information for all three years can be made available.

Records of the South West Regional Development Agency are here, here and here. They show Dr Savage receiving £8,666 for each of the three years. They also show which organisations Dr Savage had registered as having an interest with and that had received grant monies from the RDA. These are recorded in the accounts and there is no suggestion of impropriety.

This gives John Savage total income from these posts of £58,666 – £62,666 in 2009-10, £58,666 – £62,666 in 2010-11 and £58,666 – £62,666 in 2011-12.

If you have amendments, additions or corrections to this information please leave them in the comments section below. Please note that they will not be approved until checked, and that resources for checking are limited. To help, please remember to include URLs to sources.

 

Posted in Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Meet The Professionals

Posted on 02/09/2012 by samchapman

One of the issues in the Police and Crime Commissioner election is around whether the job should be held by a politician. This usually involves some debate as to what constitutes a politician, whether concerns are about all politics or just party politics, and whether PCCs will automatically become politicians once elected.

Last week, TopOfTheCops published an article by Jon Collins of the Police Foundation revealing the backgrounds of various candidates, including how many were already Councillors or members of police authorities, while on the same day the Taxpayers Alliance revealed their survey of the annual levels of basic allowances paid to all Councillors, ranging from £1,500 annually in saintly South Ribble, to £16,267 in belt-loosening Birmingham (and more in the Scottish Borders).

This coincidence of political background and pay sits well with the question as to which of the PCC candidates are already professional politicians. Who is spending their life in public service, and who is making a living from public office? Which candidates spend their own money and don’t claim it back, and which are going to town on public expenses? Perhaps these questions give us an insight beyond the political debate toward character and integrity, the sort of thing the public say they want from PCCs?

Tomorrow will see the launch of a new feature on TopOfTheCops whereby we seek, among other things, to help you answer those questions. TopOfTheCops will collate the existing information on what public offices are held by candidates and have a look at their last three years of allowances and expenses.  Where they have not been in office for all that time we will happily look back to whatever older sources are available, so former MPs should take note.

But first, a note on methodology. Where possible TopOfTheCops will provide a total annual income, but that will include expense claims such as mileage and subsistence. A candidate could object that this should be deducted from the total, as it represents money spent by the candidate, and not profit. TopOfTheCops has chosen a different path, firstly because some authorities have paid mileage above the HMRC approved rate, including an element of profit, and secondly because some candidates make the expense but do not claim it back, and their virtue is lost in the system. Adding all payments together, while providing what detail there is behind them, gives a little information that can help people to decide precisely what type of candidates they are being offered.

This is not going to be a Big Bang whereby all candidates’ incomes are laid bare on one day. Instead we will start with Avon and Somerset and work our way along. That means you can help – if you want to share what you know about your local candidates, or if you are a candidate and would like to support this effort, just do your sums, show your working out, and remember to quote your sources (with URLs) so that we can follow the links and check. If you represent a Council, Police Authority or other relevant body, make sure that the last three years of data is on your website and easy to find, and put the link on this post.

It may be that this information raises additional questions. Why are a particular person’s expense claims so high? How do they relate to the level of claims made by other individuals in the same institution? Are these claims backed by receipts? Feel free to raise them here, but also to go the relevant authorities and ask them yourselves, but let us know if you do, to avoid duplication, and remember to come back and share the results.

Posted in Expenses and Allowances | Tagged , | 13 Comments

Silly, out of season

Posted on 01/09/2012 by samchapman

August is probably the very last month you would choose to “bury bad news”. With Parliament not sitting and many politicians on holiday normally there is a dearth of news which produces the famous 'silly season' where small curious stories get attention normally beyond their merits. This August has probably had less of this due to the Olympics and now the Paralympics, but those who practice news management probably play it safe in August anyway, due to the lack of competition from other political stories.

So we have a right to be suspicious when, on the first day of September, we get two stories on PCCs from the main parties that we could really have found out about at other times.

The first is from Nottinghamshire, where the Conservative PCC candidate Mike Quigley has stood down because of some undisclosed minor conviction 44 years ago that disqualifies him from standing. (Update:- This report reveals it was criminal damage – breaking a window while drunk from 21st birthday party) I had thought that, with the list of none-fessions on this site, and the mess the Labour party suffered in August around this same issue, perhaps this whole 'previous convictions' thing was over, but no. The Conservative party had already in August refused to tell me what they were doing about candidates' previous convictions. Now perhaps we know why. Trouble is, they knew about this problem in June, 2 months ago, when they lost Keiron Mallon from the Thames Valley shortlist because of a conviction he had already told them about. They should have known by reading the list of qualifications before they even started. The slow-motion reaction on this issue by CCHQ does them no favours, on a day when the Party Chairman is pleading in public to keep her job, for the inspiring reason that she ticks all the right boxes.

Mr Quigley, by the way, has been replaced as Nottinghamshire Conservative PCC candidate by Tony Roberts, Deputy Leader of Newark and Sherwood District Council. The fact this is announced at the same time shows the pre-planned nature of the timing, in contrast with the fiasco in Cambridgeshire earlier this week. (Update: This report seems to show the candidacy has simply passed to the runner-up)

The second piece of news is from Labour's on-again off-again candidate in Derbyshire, Alan Charles. You'll remember that Mr Charles stood down from being candidate because of a court appearance 47 years ago, that his resignation as candidate came a couple of days after TopOfTheCops asked him to declare he was clear of problematic convictions, and that his reinstatement as candidate came a couple of days after TopOfTheCops told him that his conditional discharge didn't count as a conviction.

Well, Mr Charles wouldn't say what it was he had done wrong all those years ago – not when he stood down, and not when he stood back up again, but today, when it begins to sound like old news, he has admitted that he stole a purse from a woman's handbag while she was shopping. The Twitterverse has gone into its we-all-make-mistakes/let's-forgive-and-forget-mode. I'll indulge in neither forgiveness or condemnation here, but just look at the politics of it. This isn't what we have heard before – the 'oops, the car I was in turned out to be stolen' or 'I was on railway property with some people I knew who were shooting cans' – this is a deliberate act of dishonesty with a personal victim that will chime with many women who have lost their belongings in similar circumstances. I can see why it has come out today, but even those 47 years may not be sufficient to stop the story damaging his campaign.

 

Posted in Updates | Tagged , , | 4 Comments

Boris leads the way on PCC team-building

Posted on 31/08/2012 by samchapman

If you could look, through a crystal ball perhaps, 3 months into the future you could tell a lot about PCC world, perhaps including how the new Commissioners were beginning to form their teams. But there is no need for any of you to transgress the admittedly-repealed Witchcraft Act, for Boris has done the job for you.

Take a peek at the Jobs section of the Mayor’s website and you will see that he and his Deputy for Policing Stephen Greenhalgh are busy advertising for Non-Executive Advisers and a Chief Operating Officer for the Mayor’s Office for Policing and Crime.

The adverts are encouraging. The Advisers are 3-4 days per month positions, a welcome break from the idea in Local Government that important jobs are only ever handed down from heaven in 37-hour per week chunks, making them attractive to a wider range of people – women, retirees, people who spend too much time blogging, etc. They focus on Property, Procurement and Neighbourhoods, showing an early recognition for the importance of resolving issues in these areas.

The Chief Operating Officer on the other hand, is an up-to-£150K per year role that dwarves the salary of any PCC, and will be tempting to those of our readership in senior positions in Police Authorities. The supporting documents give details of the MOPAC Mission & Priorities, which have a reassuringly heavy emphasis on crime and not just policing, with a scattering of other clues on things like “shared services” that I will let others follow up.

A related issue that has come up a lot recently is around a basic question in how PCCs will form their teams.

Some candidates have been good enough to share their plans with me confidentially. There is a range from those who do not wish to appoint a Deputy PCC to those who want to appoint several. But recently I had some friendly advice from someone working at the Local Government Association (yes, really! Despite what I’ve said about the LGA more broadly, their staff can be quite good).

That point was questioning whether a PCC can really appoint more than one Deputy. Obviously the first thing I did was go back to s.18 of the Police Reform and Social Responsibility Act. It provides (emphasis mine):-

18 Delegation of functions by police and crime commissioners

(1) The police and crime commissioner for a police area may—

(a) appoint a person as the deputy police and crime commissioner for that police area, and

(b) arrange for the deputy police and crime commissioner to exercise any function of the police and crime commissioner.

(2) A police and crime commissioner may arrange for any person (who is not the deputy police and crime commissioner) to exercise any function of the commissioner.

…and then there are various exceptions as to who can be appointed and what functions they can perform.

It’s that whole “the” Deputy PCC thing that is bothering me. Does the use of the definite article confine a PCC to one Deputy? Clearly the legislation allows other people also to be appointed and to do much of the same stuff, but the language does not seem to admit of more than one Deputy.

Then I read a little further – specifically to Schedule 1 of the Act which is also fairly heavy on the use of “the” with one exception (emphasis mine) –

9 (1) A police and crime commissioner must notify the relevant police and crime panel of each proposed appointment by the commissioner of—

(a) the commissioner’s chief executive,

(b) the commissioner’s chief finance officer, or

(c) a deputy police and crime commissioner.

My understanding of this difference is that a PCC must have a Chief Executive and Chief Finance Officer, but does not have to appoint a Deputy, so I don’t think this stretches the meaning.

Which then raises the issue of, if there can only be one Deputy, could the job be available on Job-Share, because that would require at least 2 people?

My contact suggested anyone wanting a number of Deputies could have them, but only one could be a Statutory Deputy. To me it is clearer, if you are going to do that, to appoint Assistant PCCs, and calling one of these Assistant Commissioner (a Chief-Constable-level rank in the Met) is so confusing and funny that it almost begs to be done.

And there are more puzzles around Deputies, but those are for another day.

Posted in Perspectives | Tagged | 2 Comments

Another fine mess

Posted on 30/08/2012 by samchapman

Today it seems that John Pye is no longer the Conservative Candidate for Cambridgeshire. At least that’s what Conservative Campaign Headquarters think. (Update: This is probably the best story-in-a-headline on the issue- “Tory Party announces that Tory hopeful who beat two Tories but who is not a Tory and refuses to become a Tory quits as Tory candidate for police commissioner“)

In case you didn’t know, Mr Pye had been freshly selected as PCC candidate when it emerged that he wasn’t actually a member of the Conservative party. To add insult to injury, he was refusing to join the party, insisting that this underlined his beliefs and credibility about the PCC needing to be politically independent. Mr Pye is an Independent member of Cambridgeshire Police Authority.

Various reports today contain rumours or a fair degree of certainty that he is no longer the Conservative candidate, while it remains unclear if he will (continue to?) run as an Independent. It’s clear that he had refused to confirm or deny reports that he has stood down and, to TopOfTheCops, that is not the behaviour of someone who is carrying on as Conservative candidate.

This seemed to raise a few basic issues to me.

  • Did Cambridgeshire’s Conservatives know they were selecting someone who was not a party member? His candidate statement in support of his bid does not resolve this question. If they didn’t know, why did the Party not tell them? (Update: It appears that Mr Pye was clear to the central party and possibly to people at hustings, but that those who voted by post without attending hustings may not have had the matter addressed in the literature they received)
  • If another candidate who was unsuccessful in the selection process had proceeded to run against him they would risk discipline by their party, but if the selection had turned out differently, and Mr Pye had run against the successful candidate, disciplining him would be impossible.
  • Is it really a credible approach to declare independence of a political party in terms of membership when you would quite like to borrow their name and logo for the purposes of getting elected?

It also raises the question of when and whether people have joined the Conservatives. If you keep in mind that the Conservatives have a rule whereby members must have joined for at least three months before they can vote in any internal party elections, it is clear that some of the memberships have been rather recent.

By that standard John Pye could not select a candidate, but he could be a candidate! In Northumbria, Phil Butler joined the party just 3 weeks before his selection, suggesting he applied before joining. Again, he could not have chosen a candidate, but he could be one.

A story has reached me that an ex-military type did not get through to the final selection in one force area precisely because he had forgotten to join the party, and when I made similar enquiries of another ex-military candidate, who had withdrawn from the Lancashire selection process at the last minute, he refused to answer the question as to when he had joined. Funnily enough, John Pye is a retired RAF Commodore.

It is looking increasingly like the Huffington Post may have been on to something in February when they said that number 10 was very disappointed in the quality of candidates who had put themselves forward. TopOfTheCops broke the story  earlier this week that around the same time the Home Secretary had a secret meeting with Simon Weston, who suddenly declared he was a candidate a few days later. Was there then also a recruitment drive among ex-forces personnel in order to beef-up the selection? Certainly the 31 January date on the initial application form was ignored, with applications only being regarded as closed on most selections on 31 May.

This suggests some easy questions for the media or anyone else when they encounter a Conservative PCC candidate:-

Are you a member of the Conservative party?

When did you join the Conservative party?

Why didn’t you join it before then?

If Mr Pye’s time as a Conservative candidate has come to an end, who takes over as Conservative candidate?

Cambridgeshire had a postal ballot, and the other candidates were Shona Johnstone and Sir Graham Bright. The announcement revealed that the counting system used was one where points are allocated to preferences, rather than being first past the post. The result was that the person with the least votes wins! That’s not at all confusing.

As the results were

John Pye – 1,360 votes
Sir Graham Bright – 1,508 votes
Shona Johnstone – 1,608 votes

it looks like Sir Graham Bright was the runner-up. But it also looks rather close, and it is not clear who would have been preferred if John Pye had not been one of the options.

TopOfTheCops readers may remember an allegation resulting in Shona Johnstone going to court to be tried for criminal damage, where a conviction would have disqualified her from the PCC role. However, this week she was convicted instead of careless cycling, which won’t provide such an impediment. What a curious coincidence that these two things should happen so close together!

So, how will the Conservatives pick their new PCC candidate in Cambridgeshire. Either of the two remaining candidates could justifiably feel aggrieved if they lose out in a return to the existing ballot, but the election is underway and is there really time for a fresh selection procedure?

Whatever happens it seems clear that Cambridgeshire must be added to the list of botched Conservative PCC selections. TopOfTheCops has already told you of a party investigation in the West Midlands, and of virtual primary elections resulting from discontent in Hampshire and Surrey. And there are more. Will the Conservatives sort this out? Will it take a move in the impending reshuffle to provide the impetus for that to happen? If they don’t resolve these issues quickly, an election held on the ‘home ground’ of law and order that could have established electoral momentum may instead do the reverse.

Posted in Conservatives, Perspectives, Selecting Candidates | 7 Comments

Democratic Demographics

Posted on 29/08/2012 by samchapman

Jon Collins is Deputy Director of the Police Foundation. Here he shares some facts about the candidates for Police and Crime Commissioner.

The last couple of weeks have probably been the busiest yet for the media debate on Police and Crime Commissioners. With the Olympics out of the way and most national politicians taking the chance to go on holiday, the news vacuum has been filled by some much-needed debate on the forthcoming PCC elections. To prepare for the interviews that came my way I looked into who the candidates for the elections are. Here’s what I found.

To date there are, I think, 140 confirmed candidates for PCC.* 41 are representing the Labour Party, 36 are representing the Conservative Party and three are Liberal Democrats. There are three representing UKIP, four standing for the English Democrats, and one each for the EDL and the Official Monster Raving Loony Party. There are also 51 independent candidates.

But putting aside their party affiliation, or lack of one, what do we know about these people (few of whom are household names)?

Prompted by a press release from the Association of Police and Crime Commissioners, one of the first issues to come under scrutiny was the candidates’ gender. “Men to dominate police commissioner elections” said a subsequent Guardian headline. Certainly the candidates are overwhelmingly male – of the 140 candidates, only 28 are women (20%). Five of the 36 Conservative candidates are female (14%), as are 13 of the 41 Labour candidates (37%). None of the other party candidates are female, while only eight of 51 independent candidates (16%) are women. One commentator described this as depressing and anti-democratic, while according to PCC hopeful Vera Baird a “phalanx of stale, male and pale”candidates was almost inevitable.

Following this intervention, the candidates’ ethnicity also came under the spotlight. In total, 131 of the 140 candidates are white (94%). 45 of the 51 independent candidates are white, as are 39 of Labour’s 41 candidates, 35 of the 36 Conservative candidates, and all of the smaller parties’ candidates. If recent predictions on ConHome, based on now fairly dated Police Foundation research, are accurate, and unless an independent can break through, the only non-white PCC will be Jas Parmar in Bedfordshire, which is thought to be a very marginal area that could well go to Labour.

More recently, the debate has shifted to look at the candidates’ backgrounds. Of the 140 candidates, nine are current or former MPs, three are current or former MEPs and one is a former Welsh Assembly minister. 55 are current or former local councillors (though many will have had another job at the same time). So 68 candidates in total (49%) have previous experience as an elected politician.

These are not spread evenly, unsurprisingly. 55 out of 77 Labour and Conservative candidates (71%) are current or former ‘politicians’, as are six of the 12 candidates from other parties. But only seven of the 51 independents (14%) have previous experience as a councillor or MP.

In addition, a number of candidates have run for election unsuccessfully in the past, for example Sarah Flannery (an independent candidate in Cheshire) and Nick Varley (the Conservative candidate in Durham).

Unsurprisingly, given the abundance of former councillors, many of the candidates have also been a member of their local police authority. 31 candidates are current or former police authority members (22%), with 10 representing the Conservatives, 13 representing Labour and one representing the Liberal Democrats. Seven current or former police authority members are standing as independent candidates.

In terms of other backgrounds, the most discussed has been the number of candidates who have previously been police officers. In total, 19 candidates (14%) are former paid police officers (at least three further candidates – Fraser Pithie, Jim McArthur and Matt Stockdale – have been special constables). Only five of these represent political parties (three Conservatives and one each for Labour and the Liberal Democrats), while 14 are independents.

In addition, 14 candidates have served in the military (including two as reservists). Nine are standing for the Conservatives and one each for Labour, the Liberal Democrats and UKIP, with two standing as independents. Other candidates have a range of professional experience. Some have a background in business, while others have worked in local government or the voluntary sector. A few are lawyers. More unusually, one used to be a fire–fighter while another was, until recently, a commercial airline pilot.

But does all this matter? Well, the lack of many household names exacerbates current concerns about turnout. It is disappointing that the pool of candidates is not more diverse. And obviously people will want to know about the people they are voting for, so their previous experience will be a consideration and will affect their credibility. For those candidates who have been on a police authority their track record will be particularly relevant, and they may find themselves having to explain, or distance themselves from, decisions made by the authority while they were a member.

But more important that what candidates have done in the past is what they would do, if elected, as PCC. So I, for one, would like to see the future debate focus on policy. I hope that this post is helpful in informing some of the inevitable discussions about who the candidates are. But I hope that, as election manifestos are published and the election gets closer, we’re busy discussing what candidates would do to tackle antisocial behaviour or organised crime, not whether they have been a local councillor, a cop or a pilot in the past.

As RosBaston succinctly put it on Twitter, ‘Get back to the issues, guys’.

* This only includes those selected by their party and independents who have confirmed that they are standing (subject, of course, to finding the required signatures and deposit). It does not include Liberal Democrats who have not yet been selected but are believed to be the only contender in their area (Pru Jupe in Cumbria, Ron Tindall in Hertfordshire and Robert Teal in South Yorkshire) or Liberal Democrats who have said that they are interested but who have not yet been selected (for example Linda Jack in Bedfordshire, Lembit Opik in Northumbria and Andrew Smith in Sussex).

Posted in Resources | Tagged , | 8 Comments

Off The Record

Posted on 28/08/2012 by samchapman

TopOfTheCops can exclusively reveal today that Home Secretary Theresa May met with Falklands veteran Simon Weston at the end of January, and just days later he launched his ill-fated bid to stand as an Independent candidate to be Police and Crime Commissioner for South Wales.

The information was contained in the Home Office's response to a Freedom of Information request from TopOfTheCops editor Sam Chapman submitted in July after Weston's withdrawal from the race.

Queries had been raised surrounding Weston's eligibility to stand, given he had a conviction as a teenager. Despite virtually unanimous legal opinion that Weston was ineligible, Theresa May announced that the law was not aimed at people like Weston, and Michael Crick was told that the Attorney General and Home Secretary both believed that Weston was allowed to stand. Meanwhile election law expert Ros Baston unearthed evidence of Policing Minister Nick Herbert having previously briefed the House of Commons, as they passed the law, that juvenile convictions would be able to disqualify PCC candidates. The full history is here.

Shortly afterward, Weston withdrew from the race saying it was getting too political, and then Ros Baston received confirmation from the Home Office that people in Weston's position would be banned from standing, as just about every lawyer who wasn't Attorney General seemed to have always thought.

TopOfTheCops then asked the Home Office for details of any meetings between their Ministers or Senior Civil Servants and Simon Weston since the General Election. The Home Office replied that one meeting had taken place between Home Secretary Theresa May and Simon Weston on 31 January 2012.

This was the same day given as a deadline by the Conservative party on application forms for the Police and Crime Commissioner nomination, so the Home Secretary may have already known about the likely range of candidates the Conservatives might have to choose from. Indeed, only three weeks later the Huffington Post's Chris Wimpress was reporting that the candidates the party had to choose from were a massive disappointment to No.10. The 31 January deadline was then extended eventually until the end of May in most areas.

In late January there were few high-profile candidates. The Conservatives had only Colonel Tim Collins, who was seeking the Conservative nomination in Kent and who had yet to make unfortunate remarks about doing the job part-time, which some believe doomed his campaign.

After meeting the Home Secretary on 31 January, Simon Weston announced he was running for the role on 9 February in the Sun newspaper. He began the campaign with much press coverage but little internet presence, which may suggest that the public launch of his campaign had not been preceded with a long period of preparation.

The Home Office response lists no other Ministers as present at the meeting with Mr Weston, which suggests Policing Minister Nick Herbert was not there. If this included a discussion about the PCC elections, and had Mr Herbert been involved, clearly he could have been in a position to pass on his knowledge about the impact of previous convictions.

The only other contact listed between the senior levels of the Home Office and Weston is when the Home Secretary's Diary Secretary called Weston to arrange the meeting. This suggests that the meeting was instigated by the Home Secretary.

Curiously, the Home Office says there is no record of the conversation between the Diary Secretary and Mr Weston, and that no note or minute of the meeting itself was taken, and the Home Office therefore has not revealed the subjects discussed at the meeting. The civil service is known to be fastidious about these things so the absence of a record may lead to further questions from interested parties.

The Home Office has stated it has responded with all relevant data that it holds about the meetings, so the official position of the Department appears to be that it does not know what was discussed at the meeting.

What is clear however is that 9 days later Mr Weston launched his campaign, which was an upset to the then favourite declared candidate in South Wales, former Labour First Minister Alun Michael MP, who had declared his intention to seek the Labour nomination two weeks before the Home Secretary met Weston. It is not clear whether his announcement predated the Home Office's first approach to Weston.

The revelation about the meeting will likely lead to further suspicions in the Labour party around Independent candidates, particularly in areas such as South Wales where Conservatives have yet to pick a candidate or do not have a recent history of electoral success. It was after all in February that Peter Hain warned of Independents who in his view were 'closet Tories' standing in local elections in Wales.

Finally, as the only meetings and telephone contact with Weston disclosed between Home Office Ministers or Senior Civil Servants was related to the 31 January meeting, this means that the Home Office has no record of any meetings, phone calls or email contact between themselves and Simon Weston or his representative in June and July when his personal circumstances were under review at the Home Office and in the media. Did they just abandon him at this difficult time, and pass messages only through statements to the media, or was there communication that for some reason was not on the Home Office's books?

TopOfTheCops awaits further developments with interest.

Midday Update:- Michael Crick, of Channel 4 News, has picked up the story and added what he knows, and some questions this raises:-

  1. Weston repeatedly told Crick that his previous conviction would not prevent him standing.
  2. The Home Secretary personally told Crick that Weston's conviction would not be a problem. This was wrong.
  3. Was Weston's confidence based on discussions with May?
  4. Was this discussed at their January meeting?
  5. Was Weston a proxy Conservative?
  6. Did Simon Weston launch his campaign on this basis of duff advice and assurances from Theresa May?

I would add the following:-

If Weston's confidence was based on discussions between him and May then:-

1) if it was at the January meeting, why was Nick Herbert not kept informed? We know he knew that such convictions were a problem – he had agreed that approach deliberately with Labour in the Bill's committee stages. Do May and Herbert not talk?

2) if it was other than at the January meeting why has it not been disclosed in response to the Freedom of Information request.

and…

Whose idea was it that Simon Weston should run? Weston's or May's?

Had South Wales Conservatives decided not to run a Conservative candidate by the end of January? If so, why has this never come out? If not, was the Home Secretary encouraging someone to run against her own party's candidate? Is that OK now within the Conservative party?

It would be handy if someone could ask the Home Secretary and/or Simon Weston some of these questions – in particular what their meeting was about, and whether Weston's candidacy and the impact of his conviction was covered.

 

 

 

Posted in Perspectives, Updates | Tagged , , , , , , | 1 Comment

…in for a pound?

Posted on 26/08/2012 by samchapman

The Birmingham Post’s Jonathan Walker has done some digging on the TopOfTheCops story about an investigation into the West Midlands Conservatives PCC candidate selection.

They have spoken to Jim Cooper, Chairman of the West Midlands version of the curiously-named Police Authority Organising Committee that the party established in each police area. He has reportedly said: “One of the candidates appealed and that appeal is being considered”. The party is saying nothing about the investigation, but I understand that the investigation is being taken forward by a senior party official from the East Midlands. If anyone wants to run a process of elimination I would guess that there can’t be many who fit that description.

This will interest Conservative candidates across the country, as at the end of the party’s PCC application form there is a statement that no appeal will be considered. If an appeal is being considered, then this implies the party is admitting its rules were wrong. If, however, the investigation is not part of an appeal, then the statement attributed to Mr Cooper by the Post implies that the person in charge of the process locally did not understand the rules.

Unsuccessful candidates around the country who did not appeal because of the line in the application form will be wondering whether they have been duped by it, and further appeals could therefore follow. Mr Cooper’s statement must mean that the unsuccessful candidate has managed to procure an investigation at the very least, and other people in comparable circumstances will be wondering how, and why they haven’t had the same.

Matt Bennett, the successful candidate, is reported to have said “All I can say is that there have been no allegations against me or any of my supporters.” This additional detail supports the analysis that the complaint is instead, as originally reported, about the party’s administration of the selection procedure.

Labour candidates, whose postal ballot results are readily accessible, may be surprised to learn that the Conservatives have refused to release voting numbers for the selection. It is hard to see how this attitude of secrecy around selection procedures can survive in the modern age, especially when Labour have had no reported problems resulting from publishing the votes each candidate received in each round of voting.

The Birmingham Post article continues with the allegation that the appeal is about registration requirements being ignored in Birmingham, Walsall and Halesowen, but enforced in Solihull, where it is alleged 28 voters were turned away.

As Matt Bennett is a former Birmingham Councillor who has gone on to nominate a Walsall Councillor as his Deputy, and as Joe Tildesley is a Solihull Councillor, it is easy to see how such an allegation is critical as, if true, it would mean a looser approach prevailed in localities where Bennett might be expected to do better, and a tighter approach on Tildesley’s home turf. This is a selection procedure reportedly resulting in a victory by 10 votes, and so it is easy to appreciate why Tildesley may have appealed, and difficult to justify a rule which denied him the opportunity so to do.

Further allegations of administrative irregularities are detailed in the newspaper’s report.

I did not go to the West Midlands events and cannot say what happened there, but I can compare what has been reported with what I am hearing from other parts of the country. Readers will appreciate that I have liaised with many successful and unsuccessful candidates in different parties. While I will not disclose individual concerns raised with me privately by candidates unless and until they are ready, I can say that local geography is a big element of the concerns that are out there but, due perhaps to Labour’s postal ballot, this is only an issue reported by Conservative candidates (and Labour people have not generally held back from complaining about other matters). Whether rules were complied with equally for competing candidates also features as a concern.

When one candidate is seen to be favoured by the choice of venue or the application of rules at certain venues for hustings or selection meetings, the party is only protected from criticism if that candidate loses, and generally that is not happening. As might be expected, such advantages seem only to have helped the candidates whose support base is nearby, which casts a shadow over the result, and discourages not only the unsuccessful candidates, but ordinary party workers who are expected to then campaign on behalf of the winning candidate.

In politics it is often not the mistake but the cover-up that kills you. It is therefore critical that the party is seen to take these concerns seriously.

Posted in Conservatives, Media coverage, Selecting Candidates | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

Michael’s mate Asil’s nadir

Posted on 25/08/2012 by samchapman

You could not make it up. If you wrote it as fiction, the book would be panned for stretching credulity.

But no, it's true. The once fugitive multi-millionaire businessman Asil Nadir returns to Britain from Northern Cyprus to clear his name, and is found guilty at precisely the same time as his former-MP friend, and one-time comforter Michael Mates, seeks election as a Police and Crime Commissioner.

Had the jury decided differently this week, no doubt Mr Mates would have taken it as the most tremendous vindication, with a consequent boost to his campaign. But as his friend begins 10 years at Her Majesty's Pleasure, is it really the best time for Mr Mates to seek 3 1/2 years of further service in a role overseeing policing and crime?

Not everyone thinks so. Twitter has a number of people ready to say it – though those of you searching for references to Michael Mates better be prepared to wade through lots of mentions of other people called Michael and their mates.

One account is called NO2MATES4PCC – not perhaps the most subtle, but the Conservatives also now find themselves up against a new challenger, former Police Authority Chair and former Conservative Councillor Simon Hayes, standing as an Independent.

Is Hampshire going to have an informal instance therefore of the sort of primary election I referred to back in March, as two de facto Conservatives battle it out in the first round of the PCC election count to see who should be the preferred Conservative candidate?

Should the Conservative party not be looking to put in place a candidate untainted by these difficulties? They had several possibilities, including a runner-up less than half the age of Mr Mates, who is seeking election at 78.

And perhaps the party should be looking at how on earth it got here in the first place. Had the party delivered proper primary elections, not meetings that are subject to being predetermined when packed by arrangement, but real postal elections as many thought had been promised, then perhaps they would not be at this point. Instead the Conservatives allowed ad hoc committees not elected by the membership for this purpose to decide the peculiar form of selection to be used locally, and unsurprisingly the forms chosen have on occasion favoured some otherwise inexplicable results.

Had they gone back to one of the architects of Police and Crime Commissioners, Douglas Carswell, now the MP for Clacton, who this week celebrated 10 years since publishing a paper advocating what has become PCCs, they would have found him a strong advocate of open primaries as the preferred method of selection.

This approach may also have prevented another unofficial primary election in Surrey, where Conservative candidate Julie Iles finds herself up against Independent candidate Kevin Hurley. They faced each other before, when Mr Hurley sought the Conservative nomination. His explanation on Twitter has been that a series of polls show the public have a clear preference (he says 94% to 6%) for candidates with the police experience that he brings to the role, and seeing a pattern of such experience being rejected by the party makes him think that the electorate should still have the choice the party has denied.

Even a postal ballot of party members may have resolved these issues. Had they resulted in exactly the same candidates as have now been chosen at least the participants may have felt they had a fair crack of the whip, but the Conservatives have let Labour steal the lead on this, granting a legitimacy to the final part of the Labour selection process that the first part of it would otherwise have denied.

And so the Conservative party, in 2 counties at least, faces the prospect of reaching its own nadir in unofficial primary elections that are practically of its own making, but without being able to take any credit for the innovation.

 

Posted in Perspectives | Tagged | 9 Comments