Weekend update – Part, The First – 17th March 2012

Posted on 17/03/2012 by samchapman

Being Belfast-born but raised largely in Lancashire, I struggle with what to put in diversity monitoring forms that ask me to choose between being White (British) and White (Irish). Concerned that most personnel officers may be simply puzzled by a new category of White (Orange), I’ve generally gone with being British during the week and Irish at weekends, so I note that today St. Patrick’s Day falls on a Saturday. A good day to be Irish.

New challengers

This week we welcomed to the race Gordon Sandilands in Cumbria (though a wave tsunami of media interest had him backing out a few days after the welcome).

Other new entries were former soldier Anthony Kimber in Sussex (no party affiliation mentioned), Police Authority chair Ruth Rogers for Labour in Cambridgeshire and Paul Dakers in the same area as an Independent.

Former Chair of Bedfordshire Police Authority and former Councillor Adrian Heffernan has told the Police Foundation he will be applying, and Richard Bartlett is considering running in West Yorkshire, being particularly concerned about Police Authority chairs running for PCC.

Meanwhile, Channel 4 News’s Michael Crick has been keeping himself busy, confirming that Margaret Hanson, wife of Labour’s shadow police minister David Hanson, is running for the party’s PCC nomination in N Wales, and is one of 25 women in the 139 possible candidates he has counted. He has also tracked down former Conservative MP Humfrey Malins who told him he was “more likely than not” to run in Surrey, and former Labour MP Hilton Dawson, who is competing (among others) with former Solicitor-General Vera Baird for the Labour nomination for PCC in Northumbria. Mr Dawson has moved there from Lancaster, and Ms Baird has rented a flat there, giving them enough of a legal basis to qualify as local for the purposes of the election.

Meanwhile the Evening Chronicle reported that former LibDem MP Lembit Opik is also in the frame to stand in Northumbria. Cheeky!

Runners and Non-runners

The Labour long-listing process spewed forth its results this week. The first to break with the news was former Minister and Merseyside hopeful Jane Kennedy who announced her interview would be today. She was soon joined by Mike Caseman-Jones and a host of others, but Mayor of Hull and former chair of Humberside Police Authority Colin Inglis was excluded from the Labour longlist.

In Lancashire earlier this week Councillor Chris Maughan had told the Blackpool Gazette that he was not too young to be a Police and Crime Commissioner aged 22, but the Labour longlisters seem to have felt differently.

In other news…

…we shall continue this round-up tomorrow, but there was some happy news on the interface between crime and politics this week when Andrew Percy MP reported that after being shoved up against a wall by Eric Joyce MP in a brawl in the Houses of Parliament he has found that his back problem has been cured. Meanwhile Mr Joyce remains a pain in the backside for Labour, but at least this might give him some ideas as to future career options. Judging by the number of former MPs coming forward for PCC jobs, it looks like the job of an ex-MP is not a busy one.

Posted in Selecting Candidates, Updates | Tagged | Leave a comment

Government proposes a TopOfTheCops website – err, hang on!

Posted on 16/03/2012 by samchapman

The Electoral Commission has published their response to draft secondary legislation from the Government, which gives the game away about how the government plans to deal with the problem of people not knowing what the Police and Crime Commissioner elections are all about or who is standing in their area. (A briefing is also available)

The Commission has been pushing for a free postal drop of leaflets for candidates, or for a booklet to be produced and distributed in each area with details from each candidate, which we’ve covered before, here and here, he says in an I-told-you-so fashion.

Instead, the Government proposes setting up a website to collect together Candidate details nationally and make them available to the public, sometime in October or November, with a print on demand service for those without t’internet. Er, hello?- we’re way ahead of you with this site you are now reading, and it hasn’t cost the taxpayer a penny. And as for print on demand – ask a friend who has the Internet about TopOfTheCops.com – it’s a Big Society after all!

Though if you’re interested, Nick, er, Mr Herbert, I’m open to very high offers. I mean, I do have a minor Apple-products addiction, and having tremendous sums of money for this here domain might help me deal with my guilt when I buy them….later today.

Anyway – in case the government is penny-pinching on the whole booklets-to-households issue, the Commission has reminded the Government that Parliament gave the Commission responsibility under clause 53 of the Act that sets up the Commissioners to “‘take such steps as it considers appropriate’ to raise public awareness for PCC elections”, and the Commission thinks it is appropriate for the Commission to print and issue a booklet to every household.

Cue standoff.

Perhaps the Commission is already happy with the TopOfTheCops.com that we have?

They are not, however, happy with the Government – check this out about the 30 remaining Parliamentary days before it’s six-months before the election “any further delay by the Government in finalising the draft secondary legislation would pose an increasing risk to our ability to provide timely and accurate guidance on the rules for the first PCC elections to campaigners and electoral administrators“.

They also point out that two different departments are arranging elections on the same day and appear to be using different mechanisms. These are Home Office/PCC elections/website and Communities/Mayoral elections/booklets. They didn’t say, but I will add, that it is the Communities lot that are used to dealing with elections.

For the record, the Association of Electoral Administrators are not chuffed either, and in case you are chastising yourself for missing something, my search of draft Statutory Instruments at legislation.gov.uk (where this stuff is supposed to be) drew a blank many times.

Is this website thing just an idea being floated? Err, no. The Commission says “While we have made clear from an early stage that we do not believe the approach being taken is the right one, we understand from the Government that they are unlikely to significantly change their plans and have therefore focussed on how they can be improved.“

There’s lots more in the sometimes lengthy documents linked in this article, but I have a wacky idea I’m willing to share with you. Why don’t you Candidates reading this join with me in an “All in this together” kind of way, and make TopOfTheCops.com, which has already actually started, and which is free, the go-to website for finding out about candidates, and save the government the cost and bother of commissioning some techies to do it for them. And why don’t the Electoral Commission, administrators and the government get together to deliver just the one booklet to each household, with details about the election, the voting system, and the candidates who are standing in each area?

Simples.

Posted in Campaigns, Candidate Statements | Tagged , , | 1 Comment

Is the party over?

Posted on 15/03/2012 by samchapman

If you’ve come here expecting lots of commentary on “Winsor Part 2”, then I’m sorry to disappoint, but it’s just soooo long that I haven’t read it all yet, and haven’t the inclination to pretend I have (unlike a few people). And besides, this will be debated for months on end, whereas I have something for you that’s smaller and quieter than the hurricane blowing round Winsor, but very possibly could be the first hint of something important.

Three days ago, TopOfTheCops received a tweet from someone named Gordon Sandilands, announcing his intention to stand as an Independent in Cumbria. This is important, because Independents are like hen’s teeth, as for that matter, are publically declared candidates in Cumbria. So we told the world.

Tonight, another tweet, and a few emails. Mr Sandilands is withdrawing his candidacy. As agreed with him, I’ll let him explain why:-

“Could you please announce on your web site that I have withdrawn my intention to stand as an independent candidate for Cumbria.
I am currently working a 6 month resignation period and under estimated the sheer magnitude of media attention that my announcement to stand would attract.
I currently have some 1400 personal emails requesting information and interviews which is of course impacting on my ability to fulfil my contractual obligations to my current employer.“

Gordon’s campaign had been running for just over a week, and featured a small website. One of the sections on that site was called “campaign assistance”, and included the following.

“To assist me to run an efficient and effective campaign, I am calling upon people of Cumbria with a variety of backgrounds and experience, to volunteer to undertake various roles.
Unlike the political parties, I don’t have a large machine or budget behind me, but this won’t deter me from standing for election to be a true representative for you.

The assistance required would be delivering letters, talking with potential voters and various administration roles.

I alone, can’t afford to buy the right to represent you and further call upon supporters for assistance in raising the £5,000 deposit which us Independent candidates must find. This deposit will be refunded in full once I reach 5% of the votes cast in this election – I am confident that any assistance will be repaid in full.”

So I asked Mr Sandilands to break down those 1,400 emails. Turns out that about 30 were from the media, with the remainder being financial and campaign assistance offers and general enquiries about his proposed solutions to issues.

And that’s what’s important. A candidate in an area devoid of candidates said he was fed up of political parties and would people join together to help him stand. And they did – to a greater degree than he could deal with right now. And this level of interest was shown over 7 months ahead of an election that supposedly no-one knows about.

Now maybe Cumbria is different. Maybe their Police Authority’s past elaborate courtship with Lancashire wound enough people up about their county vanishing. The reported level of interest seems exceptional for one person, even with as much traffic as this site has been getting. Or maybe the latent level of anti-politics in this country means that asking people for help works.

So those Labour hopefuls who got the wrong kind of email this week, and their equivalents in other parties, must at this moment be wondering whether they really need their party as much as their party needs them.

Is the party over?

Posted in Campaigns, Independents, Media coverage | Tagged , , , , , | 3 Comments

What do you want to know?

Posted on 15/03/2012 by samchapman

I’ve been talking to the folk at CREST Advisory, a consultancy seeking to support PCC Candidates, and they intend to be generating some news for us all to discuss. They are in the process of commissioning an opinion poll looking at public awareness of PCC elections and other matters.

But what other matters?

Well, that’s sort of up to you. They’ve kindly agreed to listen to views from the TopOfTheCops community before finalising their list of questions. So, what do you want to know? Let CREST know by emailing them here. Let us all know by commenting below.

I pitched for asking people what problems with local criminal justice they wanted the Commissioner to fix, as I think the ‘and Crime’ end of the role is being ignored, but that idea was off the top of my head, and I’m sure you can do better.

Health Warning – there isn’t room for many questions, so only the best will do. Also, this is a national survey, and will not have sufficient respondents to say anything at all about any particular locality.

Posted in Resources | Tagged , , | 2 Comments

What are Labour Candidates thinking?

Posted on 14/03/2012 by samchapman

Well, this question is tougher for me to answer, as it requires more personal mental gymnastics than the question about their Conservative counterparts, but the main options at the minute appear to be:-

1) “Yey, I’ve made it on to the longlist – now I’ve got an interview” – the likes of Jane Kennedy, who has an interview this weekend, and others who have let TOTC know.

2) “Oh no, the selectors don’t want me and the party members won’t have the option of choosing me.” such as has happened with Colin Inglis. Good enough to be mayor. Good enough in the past to chair the Police Authority. Not longlisted for the Police and Crime Commissioner elections.

3) “Why do I not yet know whether I’m on the long-list? Why do I have to wait to find out, and if there’s a rational explanation why has no-one given it to me already – it would only take an email!”

Continue reading →

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Campaign Economics

Posted on 13/03/2012 by samchapman

There is a letter at the Economist website of interest to wannabe PCCs and their electorates. It’s from Alex Robertson at the Electoral Commission (hat tip to Jon Collins at the Police Foundation for spotting this).

The letter states that the Commission has “asked the government to provide a mechanism that ensures voters receive information from all the candidates in their area. This could be done in a similar way to mayoral elections where voters are sent a booklet with short addresses from each candidate. Without it there is a real risk people won’t know who they are voting for in November.“

Continue reading →

Posted in Campaigns | Tagged , , , , , , | 5 Comments

What are Conservative candidates thinking?

Posted on 12/03/2012 by samchapman

Yesterday saw Conservative Home feature an article on the emerging Police and Crime Commissioner candidates.

It criticised some Conservative candidates for perceived dithering as to whether they were standing or not, and acknowledged that some had been compromised by their opposition to the reform ever happening at all, especially those who were “trying to defend a cosy but ineffective niche they enjoyed in Police Authorities.” It called for “more candidates who have a real belief in the need for police accountability and who are open about standing“, and criticised many of those who were standing for having no web presence or policy-free websites. Read more for the TopOfTheCops response.

Continue reading →

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The more the merrier…

Posted on 11/03/2012 by samchapman

The King of the Tory grassroots websites, ConservativeHome, has namechecked TopOfTheCops this morning, and Dan Hannan MEP has recommended us once again to his followers. On the Labour side, former MP and former Northern Ireland Office Minister Jane Kennedy, now seeking the Labour nomination for PCC in Merseyside, has become one of our latest followers. Her twitter photo (@jane4merseyside) shows her in action at the Despatch Box at the House of Commons – well, if you’ve got it, flaunt it!

Thanks folks for the interest and feedback, and the site aims to live up to your expectations. Come back soon to see some expanded comments on that ConservativeHome article.

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Weekend update – 10 March 2012

Posted on 10/03/2012 by samchapman

Part-timers, writing and Super Thursday?

Patrick Burns wrote an article on November’s Police and Crime Commissioner and Mayoral elections, which was chiefly notable for being the first use of the term ‘Super Thursday’ in relation to these elections. Remember, it’s not American enough already.

Paul Richards, a hopeful for the Labour nomination in Sussex, wrote this piece about the memorials for fallen police officers, in the wake of the tragic death of PC David Rathband.

Theresa May decided that PCCs should not have their pay docked if they kept other roles on election, which brought out a lot of criticism in regional and local press, who by and large are now saying how scandalous it is that this should be a part-time job. Candidates scrambled to declare how full-time they would be, leading one person to ask Paul Richards if getting elected meant that he would stop writing.

However, if the second job is Council Leader, then Policing Minister Nick Herbert is opposed due to a conflict of interest. This raises issues for any Council Leaders thinking of going for the PCC job. He also said that PCCs would need a national representative body, and that it was up to PCCs to decide whether this should be the one set up by the LGA. TopOfTheCops has already expressed doubt as to whether PCCs would want to weaken their mandate with the LGA that tried to abort the PCC posts in utero.

Readers of Police Professional were treated to the shadow justice minister admitting that Police and Crime Commissioners will be here for a while. David Hanson MP noted that if an incoming 2015 Labour government wanted to change the system, they probably couldn’t get it done in time for the next PCC elections in 2016. Mr Hanson is clearly a wise man, as he now has some insulation against domestic strife should Mrs Hanson get to be Labour’s Police and Crime Commissioner in North Wales as she hopes.

New Candidates

John Norrie announced he would be standing as an Independent for Police and Crime Commissioner in Northamptonshire and quickly joined the swelling ranks of Candidates who have provided a Candidate Statement through TopOfTheCops.com. This week these have included a brace of Labour hopefuls, from Les Byrom in Merseyside, Paul Cannon in South Wales, Chris Maughan in Lancashire, and both Sajaad Khan and Barry Coppinger in Cleveland. These join those we had already – Bob Jones from the West Midlands, Ian Chisnall (Independent) from Sussex, and Keith Hunter from Humberside.

Councillor Matthew Grove became the first Conservative to declare his interest in running for Police and Crime Commissioner in Humberside. There has been a bit of a spat between Policy Exchange’s Blair Gibbs and Lord Prescott as to whether it is proper to refer to ‘Humberside’ given that it split into smaller Councils a few years ago. Either way the position he is standing for is still governing ‘Humberside’ Police.

Shona Johnsone declared her interest in the Conservative nomination in Cambridgeshire, as did George Beckett for Hampshire.

Shaun Wright confirmed the speculation that he would compete for the Labour nomination in South Yorkshire, and Derby Councillor Hardyal Dhindsa declared his intention to run for Labour in Derbyshire.

Politics and Policing

Frequent PCC commentator Jon Harvey argued for openly political Police commissioners in Left Foot Forward, marking an interesting development on the party line, and a recognition that policing is political already. Why can’t Labour politicians remember the time when they suggested elected Police Authorities back when Jacqui WhatsHerName was Home Secretary? Harvey’s readership didn’t need much encouragement to think of all kind of politics they would like to introduce into policing. How long until Conservatives remember why they were not fond of the idea of local politicians controlling policing in the 1980s?

The Leveson inquiry continued to churn out nuggets, not least of which was the Blair on Blair, where former Met Commissioner Lord Blair said that Tony Blair’s “tough on crime, tough on the causes of crime” marked the beginning of the politicisation of the police, and that he didn’t think the genie could be put back in the bottle.

Policing and Privatisation

There was a continued and largely fruitless debate about private-sector involvement in policing, which provides a good opportunity for wannabee Labour candidates to win points for being the most anti-private-sector in the run up to the selection of candidates by Labour party members, even though the debate is a bit of a difficult one for Labour to express surprise about, as the BBC’s Mark Easton noted.

The interesting insights in this debate come from the Institute of Government’s Tom Gash, who queries whether police forces currently have the skills to deal with the massive contracts being talked about, and also via Policy Exchange’s Blair Gibbs in a series of tweets, highlighting an article from the Financial Times’ Jonathan Guthrie – the idea being that, as the private sector provides employment for a lot of police officers who retire very early on pensions, and whose salaries are not abated, there is a form of subsidy for private policing through the police pension system in these cases. I shall now batten down the hatches while readers who are cops complain that they’ve had to pay quite a lot of money for their pensions, thank you very much, until the implications of that point are appreciated!

As further proof of Labour’s mobility on the private sector, Blackburn Labour Councillor Malcolm Doherty defended the decision of Lancashire Police Authority, which he chairs, to provide private health care to Lancashire’s ACPO team and the Chief Executive of the Police Authority.

In other news…

…Moldova approved the mandatory castration of paedophiles, whether foreign or domestic. But it’s only chemical castration. Bloody liberals!

…and finally, I made a joke about my favourite feature of the new iPad, and no-one laughed 😦

Posted in Updates | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 5 Comments

Lies, Damned Lies and…

Posted on 09/03/2012 by samchapman

The Royal Statistical Society through GetStats hope to use the Police and Crime Commissioner elections to improve public understanding of the stats on policing and crime, and the complicated relationship between the two. To that end they are drafting a guide for candidates in order to inform debate. You can request a copy of the draft guide and give your feedback on their website, and if you are a candidate intending to make claims about crime, remember, someone is watching you!

TopOfTheCops has taken the chance to feedback on the draft document, making the following points, among others:-

  • The draft did not mention detections and the issues that surround their use as performance indicators.
  • Some crime categories, such as drugs possession, function better as a measure of police activity than as a measure of the underlying offence.
  • The riots in August 2011 provide a useful case study as to how offences can be aggregated/minimised
  • The ‘and Crime’ part of the Commissioner’s job is real and substantial – it’s not just about policing and therefore not just police statistics, but also recidivism rates, completion of community punishment, rehabilitation etc.
  • The difference in scale of crime recorded by police as opposed to the British Crime Survey is worth greater emphasis, as is the impact of changes to crime categories and crime recording systems, making comparisons over prolonged periods especially difficult.
Posted in Resources | Tagged | 2 Comments