Today Harriet Yeo, a Union rep on Labour’s National Executive Committee, announced at Labour’s South-East conference that she was applying for the party’s nomination.
She may be up against Colonel Tim Collins, who has courted controversy for suggesting the job would likely be part-time.
The Public-I consultancy has put the known candidates from the Police Foundation list on to Google Maps. The candidates are listed by party when you click on the red dot above the towns with Police Headquarters (which is why a Conservative candidate from Cornwall will find his name floating over Exeter!), which is a nice-looking and interactive way of finding out about local candidates, particularly useful if you don’t know the name of your local force. The drawbacks are that it does not give much information about candidates or media coverage, and the information on which it is based can soon prove dated by the daily developments in this election, but you can still get all those links, Candidate Statements, media coverage and insightful commentary here at TopOfTheCops.com (modest, aren’t we?). These issues may be overcome in future, and it is pretty, so have a look.
Lord Prescott has confirmed to the Hull Daily Mail that he will be seeking the Labour nomination for Police and Crime Commissioner in Humberside.
When Alun Michael (former First Minister) said he wanted to be TopOfTheCops in South Wales, he may have been thinking that a Labour nomination there was as good as getting elected, for he said he would step down as an MP if nominated by Labour.
He may now think he’d have been better waiting for the actual election to bring his years as an MP to an end, as even if he beats Rhondda Councillor and former police Inspector Paul Cannon QPM to the Labour nomination, he will then face a challenge from an Independent, Falklands Hero Simon Weston, according to The Sun’s Tom Newton-Dunn.
John Turner, the Chief Executive of the Association of Electoral Administrators has told the BBC’s Danny Shaw of his concerns about the Police and Crime Commissioner elections. The force areas cross the council boundaries usually used for elections, will introduce a new supplementary vote system, and require a range of rules to be in place which have not yet been published, and there is a concern that the electoral register will be quite out of date at that time of year.
One key issue is how voters will get to know who is standing at the elections that cover whole force areas. Parliamentary elections provide candidates with free delivery of a leaflet through the mail. Other elections have involved official booklets provided to each household, which contain election addresses for each candidate, but so far there is no decision on this, despite it being critical in an election of which many people are unaware.
Colonel Tim Collins, who hopes one day to be Kent’s Police and Crime Commissioner, is reported by the BBC to think he will do it on a part-time basis.
In comments that will generate shrieks of horror in Police Authorities around the country, the Iraq veteran said “”It would be a part-time role for me. I don’t see there’s full time work in it.”
This has already met with a firm response from Kent Police Federation, who point out that there are currently 16 members of the Kent Police Authority.
Paul McKeever, Chairman of the Police Federation writes here about his concerns about a range of police reform issues, including PCCs. He compares it to rolling the dice and not knowing how they will fall, when his feeling is that things had been going quite well, crime falling, etc., and that the police had been accepting of a reasonable level of reform and reductions, which have since been exceeded.
One point is that “It will not be long before the blame games start between the local councils and the PCCs (and not to mention the chief constable) as to who’s at fault when things go wrong. You can guarantee it will be our officers caught in the middle.”
Perhaps this is a little glass-half-empty, but there will be a clear need for PCCs and Councils to cooperate, often across political party boundaries, and we should not underestimate the upward pressures on crime likely to be present over the next few years.
What do you think? “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” or “If everything was improving for so long, why hasn’t it got any better?”
Breaking new ground with the first of our Candidate Statements, Bob Jones tells TopOfTheCops.com why people should want him as the Police and Crime Commissioner for the West Midlands. If you want to submit your own Candidate Statement, get in touch. 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.
The MEN today listed Chair of the Parliamentary Labour Party, Tony Lloyd MP as set to enter the race for Police and Crime Commissioner in Greater Manchester. If elected, he would have to stand down from Parliament, where he has been for 28 years. The paper says “Sources within the Labour party told the M.E.N: “Tony is seriously considering standing and will be making a decision within the next week or so.”” and adds that Labour is expected to declare its candidates in June.
By happy coincidence, today also saw the London Evening Standard report an expected ‘exodus’ of Labour heavyweights readying to take flight from Parliament toward jobs as elected Mayors or Police and Crime Commissioners, having concluded that the future with Ed Miliband does not look so bright.
What do you think? Is Parliament’s loss localism’s gain? Or vice versa?
The Shropshire Star today identifies Des Parkinson, a retired chief superintendent with Dyfed-Powys Police, as wanting the Conservative nomination. The article claims the former national secretary of the Police Superintendents’ Association was involved in the creation of the Sex Offenders Register, the ban on handguns following the Dunblane tragedy in 1996, and the overturning of the double jeopardy law, enabling convictions for the murder of Stephen Lawrence.
Michael Crick has previously reported that former MEP Simon Murphy wants to stand for Labour in West Mercia. Is he the same Simon Murphy listed here as presenting to the Mid Worcestershire and West Worcestershire Labour Party on the topic of “Police and Crime Commissioners – The Ultimate Cop-Out?”?
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