Yet more grist to the mill...
From,
"John Harris is quite right about the farce of voting for a police commissioner (Why I'll spoil my ballot, 6 November). I still don't know who the candidates are, although I rang the helpline at least three weeks ago asking for details. I was invited to do this by an "information" leaflet posted to me. It did say I will have a first and second choice. No mention, though, of how the voting system works. What if there are more than two candidates? And what exactly is it all for anyway? The county police authorities, made up of elected local authority members, are being disbanded. Their job was to monitor the local police force, set the budget and, if necessary, sack the chief constable. In the future, elected local authority members will sit on a "police and crime panel" to monitor the new commissioner. If the panel doesn't like what the commissioner does, it will have a veto, including of his or her choice of a chief constable. So what's the point of having a commissioner, who will take a high salary, no doubt with expenses. What was that about fooling the people...
Penny Young
South Lopham, Norfolk"
To,
"Won't spoilt ballots just add numbers to the turnout? So maybe Ian Blair's boycott is the right response?
Mick Farley
Burton in Kendal, Cumbria"
And a few more, plus live links to articles mentioned...
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2012/nov/06/x-factor-police-chief-polls
As you may be aware, Ian Blair's notion of not turning out is, in my opinion, the wrong thing to do to signify that we are a Democracy at all and lets the proposers of this rot off the hook.