I shall spoil my ballot paper in police commissioner vote

LIKE me, and thousands of others, David Downs (Yorkshire Post, November 7) expresses very deep concerns about the need for the so-called police and crime commissioners, and asks: “Should I vote or not, or just spoil my return?”

I shall spoil my return by writing across it: “This election is unsafe”, or some such wording. Whether that is good or bad advice I know not. To not vote, I consider, is to aid and abet a totally undemocratic parliamentary manoeuvre, and thus allow a minority victory. To vote is to condone an imposition.

If, and one must ask if, such a post is required, then it should surely be by appointment, not election. It had been my belief, and still is, that a Chief Constable, as with every other police rank, remains as he (she) left police training college, a constable sworn to serve the Monarch without fear of favour. That’s good enough for me.

One candidate’s four page A4 flyer of political confusion, is headlined to imply that the candidate already has a “positive plan to cut crime”. Three short paragraphs into the spiel reveals no such advantage, as it says: “It would be my job to work with everybody to draw up a plan wholly focussed on cutting crime and anti-social behaviour .... A fresh approach and the new start needed here in the county.”

Bravo! That’s what has been missing for the last 100 years! The professional criminals must be crying with laughter at such inane, naive ambition, and already planning their own fresh approach and new start.

From: George Senior, Spa Well Lane, West Cowick, Goole.

WE don’t need crime commissioners but we do need a prompt return of the birch before this country sinks into the abyss of total anarchy.

Recipients of the birch never returned for a second helping and also vowed they would never do it again. It also earned respect. It ensured that politicians and people in high places of trust kept their hands in their own pockets.

This Government can only think in terms of more cuts. This will cut crime and prison sentences by the bucket load including jobs for the boys. I cannot comprehend why electors continue to return the three main political parties who now all live in cloud cuckoo land.

Even one times bitten no longer applies. Over the years one of my mottos has been: “If you want to know who your true friends are throw yourself down a hole and see who comes to pull you out.” In this case, it is Ukip.

From: Barbara Burton, Thwaites Brow Road, Keighley.

IN answer to David Downs of Wakefield regarding the election of police commissioners, I would suggest that he spoils his ballot paper rather than not vote at all.

No one has so far explained in concrete terms what powers a commissioner would have and what exactly they will be able to do to reduce crime.

Most people when asked say they want to see more police officers on foot but the man in the street doesn’t really know whether this is the answer to reducing crime and no senior police officer ever seems able to provide a strategy to say: “If we do this, that or the other our streets will be safer.”

The police have a very difficult job but the recent disclosures of the behaviour of some very senior officers erodes public confidence at a time when the numbers of lower ranks are being cut. We don’t need another tier of bureaucracy who sound as though they could be at odds with chief constables and on a salary of anything up to £100,000 per annum.