Get counting – I counted over 41 current possible Independent candidates, including at least 14 ex-cops on the new TopOfTheCops list of Independent PCC Candidates (i.e an average of just over 1 per area).
Of course, nowhere is really average. Many areas have no declared independents. Some have 5 or 6. What other trends can you spot?
Sussex Independent Candidate Ian Chisnall on the BBC’s developing views about covering the PCC election fairly.
OK – I may not have got the most votes in Blackpool, but it doesn’t mean I’ve lost interest in the campaign in Lancashire. So I thought you’d like to hear the news about how Ibby Master, Independent member of the Police Authority and former rival of Clive Grunshaw’s for the Lancashire Labour Police and Crime Commissioner nomination, has agreed with Mr Grunshaw to become one of his Deputy PCCs if Labour are successful in the November election. The announcement of running mates in this election raises a number of issues which I have already covered here and here.
There is the small matter of the fact that Ibby’s name won’t be on the ballot paper, so he won’t be elected to the position, and that Clive’s decision to say he will appoint him rather deftly ignores the fact that any proposed appointee needs to face a hearing of Lancashire’s Police and Crime Panel, who then recommend to the Police and Crime Commissioner as to whether the appointment should be made or not. Now, fair enough, the Commissioner can ignore them, but is it really a good idea to set out as if you mean to ignore them 4 months before the election by giving the appointment as a foregone conclusion?
I know and have worked with Ibby, both in Preston and in Blackburn with Darwen. I’m glad his contribution and extensive support within the Labour party has been recognised, and I think Clive has done well to get him on board. Ibby’s website has had a makeover with the word ‘Deputy’, and Clive has issued his own announcement featuring glowing words about Ibby. I’ve already asked him on Twitter to remind us of what he said about Ibby during the selection campaign which led to him being forced by the Labour Party to apologise to him (and to fellow Labour candidate Mark Atkinson). We’ll wait to see if that is added, but I broke the news to the world about that here on TopOfTheCops.com, and for convenience you can read below the Labour Party’s email about the affair to its members:-
“I am emailing following a recent leaflet from Clive Grunshaw sent to Lancashire members. The leaflet was the cause of a number of complaints. As it contains disparaging remarks about the other two candidates both candidates have been given the opportunity to email members with a statement on the matter. These statements are below. Clive has apologised to the other two candidates and his apology has been accepted.
Anna Hutchinson Regional Director
Mark Atkinson
“Negative campaigning should play no part in an internal Labour Party selection. To do so is inconsistent with the values of the Labour Party and frankly it’s not the Lancashire way.
Lancashire is where I was born and bred. It’s where I went to Primary and Secondary School. It’s where my family have lived for generations and it’s the county in which I was married. I am proud to call Lancashire my home and reject any suggestion that I am not local.
I would urge members to judge candidates on their merits rather than on the negative and inaccurate assertions that have been made.”
Ibrahim Master
“I have been an active member of the Labour Party for the past 20 years and, in that time, have campaigned for many candidates in both local and national elections. I’m proud of the support that I have received in this campaign from major national Labour Party figures such as Jack Straw and Keith Vaz and this is both a clear endorsement of my contribution to the Labour Party over the years and an indication that they believe that I can win the forthcoming Lancashire Police Crime and Commissioner elections for Labour. Recently, confusing remarks have been made about my Labour Party record. This kind of behaviour is not in the spirit of an internal election. It is not fair to either the candidates or to Labour Party members who need the correct information to help them make an informed choice that will benefit the whole Labour Party by ensuring that the best candidate is chosen as its representative at the future election. I would simply ask that you judge me on my record”.
My last post closed by referencing a suggestion that selected Labour candidates had been told to find themselves a deputy with knowledge or experience of policing. Both the suggestion and the post set off denials, so let's be clear – there is no suggestion that Labour candidates were told from the platform to arm themselves with a Deputy with police experience. However, I am told that in the informal groups that occur when the speeches are done, that someone we shall call a 'senior Labour figure' suggested to a small group of candidates that if they lacked such experience themselves it would be wise to do just that.
I've not named the individual, as going into allegation and denial mode would really miss the point. It's not the world's worst piece of advice and not just for Labour…
Now that all of the Labour results and over three quarters of the Conservative selection results are in we might be in a place where we can spot some trends, and the theme of this post is one of them – ex-cops didn't get selected by the political parties. In some sense politics and policing have refused to mix.
Sure, there are exceptions to this rule. Ron Hogg is Labour's candidate in Durham. He's the former Assistant Chief Constable there, and former Deputy Chief of Cleveland. Jas Parmar was selected for the Tories in Bedfordshire. He has done other things, but he also served for five years in the Met. And, (thanking Jon Collins for the reminder) – Phil Butler in Northumbria, John Dwyer in Cheshire and former Special Fraser Pithie in Warwickshire.
However, these guys are the exceptions. In Humberside, Keith Hunter lost out to Lord Prescott. In South Wales Paul Cannon lost out to Alun Michael. In South Yorkshire, the former Chief Med Hughes lost to, well, everybody. For the Tories there was no selection of Peter Walker in North Yorkshire, Jan Berry in Kent, Lance Kennedy in Devon and Cornwall, Joe Tildesley in the West Midlands, George Lee in Sussex, Darren Jaundrill in Thames Valley or me in Lancashire.
In any other election this would be unremarkable, but in this election a couple of other factors come into play. Firstly, it's policing, and people who know about policing might be expected to have an advantage. Secondly, and more importantly, poll after poll after poll has shown that the public believe such candidates to have an important advantage that they like. So, irrespective of whether their knowledge and experience is useful for the job, it is useful for getting elected, which is kind of important in politics.
Yet time and again Tory and Labour have decided on someone else. Why is that?
A number of factors suggest themselves:-
1. These are not individual decisions, but collective ones and groups make a decision on an aggregate of factors, some of which may be incompatible. Group logic doesn't have to make sense – it just has to provide a majority.
2. Some ex-cops have been up against high profile politicians playing on their home ground, and some of the cops have been relatively new to the game. In fact, in this context it is surprising that they did as well as they have.
3. The selection processes cannot be assumed to be designed to produce the best or even the most electable candidates. They seem to be there to reflect the choice of a majority of the selecting group. For Labour this could be either the party membership, or the people choosing the restricted shortlist of one in a third of cases, or a cynic might suggest, the union figures who can influence votes and funding. For the Tories the variety of selection methods used in different areas defy a single explanation, but I have reports from round the country that suggest it can be more about who is in the best position to pack the room with supporters than who is the best candidate or performs best on the day. This suggests that both parties were ill-prepared to implement this reform – that the governance of it has got ahead of the politics.
4. One might think that it is a case of parties choosing people they are familiar with, but not all the ex-cops in question are new to this, some having served as Councillors for some time.
5. It might be that people have a healthy scepticism about appointing a former cop to hold their former colleagues to account – but really the polls and discussions do not seem to show that as a live concern for many people.
6. Perhaps the selectorates don't believe the polls, or think that they represent the fact that the voters don't yet understand the nature of the job and that, when they do, they will find police experience less attractive. That of course suggests a gulf in the level of sophistication on this issue between selectorates and voters which may not stand up to a great deal of scrutiny, but also runs against the problem that if the public don't understand the situation why would anyone believe that their understanding will be meaningfully different by November? Will it all be resolved by an Electoral Commission booklet and a few leaflets, or is it not likely that it will take years of work from PCCs before significant numbers of people begin to understand where they fit?
But there is another point worth considering. Despite our national addiction to party politics a number of Independent candidates have emerged who are willing to have a go and to put their own money behind them, and a number of them are former cops. Martyn Underhill is running in Dorset, Chris Wright and Ian Johnston in Gwent, and (as Ian Chisnall reminds me below) Mick Thwaites in Essex. Nigel Goodyear in Sussex took the step of leaving the Conservatives and his Council seat in order to stand as an Independent.
They face a formidable task, but why are they doing it? Is it because the police pensions set up leaves them with time on their hands and money in their pockets at a relatively early age? Is it an opportunity to right personal or professional wrongs that their police career had let them know about but had denied them the opportunity to change so far? Is it because of their own strong belief in the advantage that would be had post-election if the candidate's prior knowledge enabled them to hit the ground running? Or is it that they feel the tide of anti-politics and, seeing the parties refusing to move with it, feel that they could be swept further and faster than has previously been seen?
You may remember that Bob Jones and Yvonne Mosquito, at one time rivals for the West Midlands Labour Police and Crime Commissioner election, quickly buried the hatchet on Bob's victory and became running mates. Well, this week there was the intriguing development, also in the West Midlands, whereby freshly selected Tory candidate Matt Bennett, not to be outdone, announced he would have a running mate too, Walsall Councillor Mohammed Arif.
Now, OK, the West Midlands is a big area, so big that its PCC will get the maximum £100,000 salary, and will replace the 17 members of the West Midlands Police Authority, but it's not the United States of America. The new police chief will not get their own plane, a contingent of bodyguards and a set of codes with which to unleash Armageddon. In this time of austerity does no-one feel the need to say, 'actually, I'll be alright on my own', or 'between me and the staff, we can probably cover it'?
Bob Jones took a risk. Politicians sometimes do. He was the first to be open about wanting a political helper in this role and it was open to his main opponent to suggest that this was an unnecessary expense and an admission of inadequacy, so Matt's decision may be just an admission of the realities of the job, but it also threw away an advantage. In the West Midlands, one of the areas where the Tories need every advantage this too is a significant risk, and suggests a powerful reason.
So what's it all about? Well, I'm going to have to entertain an uncomfortable suggestion, but to make you all more comfortable with it, I'm going to have to move you a few thousand miles West. Back in America there is ongoing speculation about who will be Mitt Romney's pick for Vice-Presidential nominee. Every four years there is a similar debate. Will it be someone from a state with a large amount of delegates? Will it be someone from the other side of the party? Will it even be an Independent? Will it be a soldier to bolster the military experience of the Commander in Chief? Will it be a woman, or someone Hispanic or Black? In asking these questions there is no necessary implication that a candidate having any of these attributes is a less-worthy candidate. There is a wide pool of talent, and a number of good choices may be available. But this is politics, and aspects of their identity may be politically useful, so the discussion goes on.
With Cllr Arif being selected, what should we debate? Is it the fact he's from Walsall, balancing Matt's background in Birmingham? Is it his experience at the Police Authority, which Matt doesn't have? Or is it that he is a prominent local member of the Asian-heritage population, and that may give the Conservatives an edge in accessing an area of the electorate that Labour may take for granted as being in some way theirs? (Despite my long-established feeling that for many in this community the Tories would be a more natural philosophical home)
I don't know. I almost feel that, being British, and used to local government, I'm not supposed to notice or speculate, lest someone think it is racist.
But I've had other news recently about Deputies around the country. Shenanigans among rival candidates as to who will back out in favour of whom. Ipswich spy live-tweeting the questions and answers for each candidate in Suffolk, including a lot on Deputies that seemed to assume that each would definitely appoint one. (By the way, does anyone else think that live-tweeting questions and answers could give candidate 2 advance knowledge that is unfair to candidate 1?)
Oh and one suggestion that selected Labour candidates had been told to find themselves a deputy with knowledge or experience of policing. Which raises the question of why that type of person didn't get selected in the first place.
As the Labour Party have completed their selection process and the Conservatives have now selected 33 of 41, but don’t look they will be finished selecting until 7 September at the earliest, regular readers should note that I have included some quick links under a ‘Candidates’ item in the menu bar above. It currently provides shortcuts to lists of Conservative and Labour Candidates, though the plan is to create other lists in due course.
Mervyn Barrett is standing as an Independent candidate to be the Police and Crime Commissioner for Lincolnshire. If you are intending to stand to be Police and Crime Commissioner where you live, you can submit your own Candidate Statement, so get in touch at Editor@TopOfTheCops.com. Others are on the way, and we are looking for 400 words, and a photo of you to which you have rights.
For 30 years, I have worked hard to find out what really works to cut crime, and make our communities safer for everyone. I understand what the police can and cannot do, and the roles and responsibilities of the rest of us.
Now I want to bring this experience to my home county, Lincolnshire, as its first police and crime commissioner.
My vision is for a police service that:
• Works to prevent crime, as well as catching criminals once it’s happened
• Responds effectively to victims’ needs
• Addresses people’s fear of crime, so they feel safe in the streets and in their homes
A lot of good work is already being done, but we still need to get smarter, using evidence and good practice to deliver real results. Out of necessity, Lincolnshire Police is already smarter than the average force but there is more we can do.
The police, councils and other agencies must listen more to local people, and work with them. Evidence shows that community consultation leads to more effective responsive policing, meaning fewer crimes and fewer victims. Working together to find local solutions to local problems is especially important to tackling problems such as the blight of anti-social behaviour. This type of crime prevention is also cost-effective. Investigations and prosecutions are expensive, and all too often the police have too little evidence to take action.
As Commissioner, I would make sure not only that local partnerships are built, but also that everyone continues to work on them month after month, year after year.
I would also develop a force that works with public protection agencies and others to deal with persistent offenders. At the moment, these agencies are good at enforcement, but less so at helping offenders make a break with their pasts. At the moment, offenders often fall back into crime, and we end up with yet more victims, and yet more cost to taxpayers. It is impossible to reduce crime significantly without breaking the cycle by providing the right support and services.
Finally, I am not a party politician. I want to keep politics out of policing. Policing decisions must be made locally, based on what works to keep down crime and maintain public order, not on party political whims or a ‘one size fits all’ approach. I would be proud to serve only the people of Lincolnshire, and answer only to them for my actions.
Website:www.mervynbarrettobe.co.uk
Twitter:@MervynBarrett
Dr Lee Rotherham is seeking the Conservative nomination to be the Police and Crime Commissioner for Lincolnshire. If you are intending to stand to be Police and Crime Commissioner where you live, you can submit your own Candidate Statement, so get in touch at Editor@TopOfTheCops.com. Others are on the way, and we are looking for 400 words, a photo of you that you have rights to, and preferably an imprint, which will be needed for the formal election period later this year.
It’s customary in these vignettes for candidates to express how they love their county, will be tough on repeat offenders, and want to see more police visible on the streets. I’m not one to differ on any of these points, having once handcuffed myself outside a police station in protest at the government red tape keeping the officers inside.
But you can find out all that about me and how I love animals on my campaign website – www.lee4lincs.org. Sam’s excellent website deserves more.
If you go down to Lincolnshire Police HQ, you’ll find the car park absolutely chocker. Parking is a pain. While fruitlessly exploring it once, I devised a Car Park Test for candidates.
A bad candidate would note the difficulty he had in parking up, and has already mentally marked a reserved space near the front doors.
An indifferent candidate would reflect on the large numbers of vehicles, and ask how much it would cost to build an extension.
A good candidate, however, would ask if all those cars really needed to be there, or whether any of the drivers could be out on the beat.
I believe a good slice of what a Commissioner can bring to the role is through outsider questioning. He can do it without treading on the Chief Constable’s toes operationally.
For instance, there’s the discovery I recently made through an FOI that, over the last 12 month period for which figures are available, our small Force was responsible for 171 vehicle accidents – equivalent to two cars in five from the fleet. Nobody could justify the rate, evaluate the risk to the public or officers, or point to any remedies undertaken.
Another question: are there still three employees of the Lincolnshire Force paid for, by the taxpayer, to do union activity? I believe that’s plum wrong. The Commissioner should pull that funding, instead allowing direct access for genuine concerns to be raised.
Or why does no-one know what proportion of burglary arrests have actually ended in a served jail sentence?
These are fair questions currently being missed. Yet the PCC role is vastly bigger. I intend to be seen as the “and crime” commissioner, personally intervening to plug liaison gaps. I’ll bring support to victims, by serious institutional reform along the British Columbia model if needed.
Some question the need and initial cost of the Commissioners. I say it depends on the candidate.
Even with the embarrassment of G4S there must still be some money in policing as another day passes and another company pops up to offer services, this time to candidates, PCCs and Police and Crime Panels (who ain’t got much cash, so that may just be for show).
The company in question is “Policing for All“, who launch their offer today. This all sounds very inclusive, but this is the sometimes topsy-turvy world of policing, where ‘equalities’ can mean favouring certain groups, and where ‘diversity’ is about looking different but sounding the same, so we should dig a little deeper.
Now, I’m been rough on some outfits in the past. The LGA and APCCs would probably never forgive me if I didn’t ask the question of any newcomer as to what view they had historically taken of the PCC reform. Well let’s have a look – who are “Policing for All” and what have they said about PCCs?
They are primarily Paul West and Jessica de Garzia, along with an Advisory Board, and their ‘previous’ runs like this:-
Paul West – former Chief Constable of West Mercia police – said in a Guardian article less than a year ago “underlying tensions remain between government ministers and senior officers, and these can only increase as the most fundamental and ill thought-through constitutional change to policing for 50 years – the introduction of all-powerful “police and crime commissioners” – approaches“.
Jessica de Garzia – lawyer who has worked on both sides of the pond, now working over here with the benefit of some experience in a place where people get to elect important parts of the criminal justice system. In this presentation to a group at the House of Lords she agreed that as PCCs only have the non-operational elements of policing to deal with, “the temptation to meddle in operational independence will be irresistible.” and said here that “Due to the size of force areas, PCCs cannot adequately represent the interests of the entire community.”
The Advisory Board is
Lord Imbert – former Met Commissioner – In the debate in the House of Lords managed to call PCCs both a “discredited American system” and “Commissars”, and worried that we would next be electing High Court judges. If only.
Baroness Harris – Lib Dem Vice President of the Association of Police Authorities – loves governing without an electoral mandate so much that she proposed the amendment in the Lords to have PCCs elected not by the public, but by the Police and Crime Panel from within its members.
Baroness Henig – Labour President of the Association of Police Authorities – and, I have to say, always very nice to me and notoriously hard-working and effective too – but when considering the legislation which sought to establish Police Commissioners in the House of Lords spoke of her “deep opposition to this Bill because it fatally undermines the principles on which policing has been delivered in this country for nearly 200 years.”
Dr Justice Tankebe – Cambridge Criminology lecturer – expert on police legitimacy, who hasn’t provided any easily locatable killer quotes for or against PCCs. Aw, shucks!
Rt. Rev. Anthony Priddis – the Bishop of Hereford – who attacked the proposals for PCCs in the House of Lords, as the Bible requires him to do. Oh no, wait a minute, that’s something else.
Not the most pro-PCC of crowds, is it? It’s that strange type of diversity again. What they need perhaps is some balance – someone from the right of politics, not in the House of Lords, with a background in crime and policing, who is notoriously in favour of the PCC reform, and suddenly has time on their hands to advise PCCs?
Do you think it likely that, now I’ve written this article, this bunch are likely to ring me up and offer me a job?
No? Me neither. But why not? And does your answer to that question also call into question why any PCC could sensibly offer a job to them?
We've been here before, or I have at least.
In 1998 the then relatively new 'New Labour' Government passed the Crime and Disorder Act, giving a statutory basis for local Crime and Disorder Reduction Partnerships (often called Community Safety Partnerships). As those of us in the field followed the various requirements to conduct Crime Audits, consulting the public, analysing local crime trends and spotting gaps in service to identify a truly local solution we all wondered what each area would come up with.
But all this localism was too much for one Home Office Minister, Paul Boateng, who had a rather curious tendency when you met him of referring to himself as “Deputy Home Secretary”, a role which doesn't exist. He sent us a letter telling us that, if we did all our local analysis right, we would obviously each find that Domestic Violence was a priority. Bang went localism and much of the point of the Crime and Disorder Act. We were expected to do what we were told, an impression reinforced as much by competition for central funding as by such ministerial directives.
I thought of this today when I read this report of Shadow Home Secretary Yvette Cooper's statements. Police and Crime Commissioners are supposed to be the voice of the people, but Ms Cooper obviously has designs on being the oracle who hears that voice on behalf of Labour PCCs. Labour candidates will make tackling domestic violence a priority, says Ms Cooper.
Now, let's be clear. Domestic violence is a terrible crime. Victims are repeatedly targetted by the same offender. Their children are likely to also be at risk, and the one place which should be a place of safety, their home, is turned into a repeated scene of risk and crime. It is an offence that is hugely under-reported and frequently misunderstood. It could intelligently be picked by any PCC as a priority area for work, though my own feeling is that challenging some of the stereotypes around domestic violence has real potential (like accepting it isn't just “wife-beating”, addressing the mismatch between the real level of male victimisation and the general lack of services for male victims, and a break from political correctness to acknowledge that abuse and violence also happen in same-sex relationships).
However I object to one type of crime being pushed on to candidates as a priority for a number of reasons:-
1) Because having local elected Police and Crime Commissioners is a chance for local people to influence elected Commissioners, not to have priorities dictated from a political party's offices in London.
2) Because priorities should be few and far between if they are to be meaningful. If everything is a priority, nothing is, and this feels awfully like the beginning of anything and everything being a priority because it is a crime or anti-social behaviour and we don't like it.
3) Because it smacks of “something must be done”. With 41 different Commissioners, one of the most exciting possibilities is that they will each have different ideas to tackle different problems. Some of them will produce innovation that can then become the next generation of “what works” that they can all implement. But this will take local creativity and proper research, neither of which are necessarilly helped if crowded out by national direction.
4) Because it reinforces the idea that the Commissioner's prioirities should be crime categories, which to me makes the PCC the prisoner of crime statistics. Instead, how about Change priorities – not just a type of crime but identifying what needs to change, which may impact on many types of crime and other experiences of our citizens?
5) Because Commissioners should be more than slaves to their party. Candidates are individuals contemplating a very serious and important job. They should have ideas of their own, rather than just waiting for someone a hundred miles away to apply the ideology-of-the-day to crime and policing.
6) Because, where priorities are properly limited in number, forcing something on to the table pushes something else off.
7) Because it creates a preferred victim. In the report what starts off as “domestic violence” is rapidly transformed into “violence against women and girls”. These are not the same thing. I don't have preferred victims. I have sons as well as daughters and I don't want anyone beating any of them up, or if that does happen, indulging in the insidious practice of denying them help because they don't fit in with a strategy which spins the positive-sounding aspects of discrimination, while merely entrenching the inevitable negative side. Sadly, this applies to the current Government as much as it does to Labour.
TopOfTheCops.com 