The official website for these elections has gone live and has details on all the candidates. Find the Thames Valley candidates at www.choosemypcc.org.uk.

Independent candidate Geoff Howard’s details are there, and I’ve summarised them below in the same format as the other candidates in my previous post.

Geoff Howard, Independent

Background: Former Head of Department in a Slough Secondary School. Businessman for 27 years. Magistrate for 20 years chairing Adult and Youth Courts in Berkshire. Former Slough Borough Councillor for 13 years.

Headlines: Politics should play no part in this role. Manage efficiency savings: no reduction in ‘bobbies on the beat’.

Top 3 crime priorities: Concentrate on tackling crimes that affect people locally. Manage efficiency savings demanded by Government without damaging the interests of the community. [Note: The choosemypcc website doesn’t ask this specific question so I have extracted this from GH’s statement.]

I’ll read the other candidates’ statements later and if there is anything new I’ll post it.

Voting procedure

If you’ve had the booklet from the Electoral Commission through your letterbox you’ve probably seen that you’ll be able to vote for up to 2 candidates. What it doesn’t tell you is how the votes will be counted – you have to look that up on a website called aboutmyvote.co.uk. It’s called the “supplementary vote system” and to save you the trouble, here’s how it works:-

• Put a cross in the first column against your first-choice candidate.
• If you don’t want to vote for a second choice, that’s it, you’ve finished.
• If you want to vote for a second choice, put a cross against your second choice in the second column. (Yes, it’s a good idea for your second choice to be for a different candidate from your first choice or you’ll confuse the system.)
• That’s it. Put your ballot paper in the box.
• When the votes are counted, all the first choices are counted first. If any candidate gets more than 50% of the votes cast they are elected. Otherwise …
• It becomes a count-off between the two candidates with the highest number of votes. The ballot papers for all but the top two candidates are re-counted, and any of their second choice votes which are for either of the top two candidates are added to those candidates’ numbers.
• The winner is the candidate with the higher number of votes at the end of this second count.

I hope that’s all clear. And no, I don’t know why they’re using this system. If anybody does please leave a comment.

The idea that policing is a function of the state which should operate with the consent of its citizens is generally held to go back to Robert Peel, founder of the modern police force in the mid nineteenth century. But how is that consent expressed today? Police Authorities are unelected and virtually unaccountable to the electorate: the Thames Valley Police Authority consists of 10 members chosen from elected councillors, 8 independent members “chosen from ordinary members of the public who responded to a public advertisement” and 2 lay magistrates. It seems highly unlikely that any Councillor has ever lost his or her seat in an election because of their actions on the Police Authority. The Home Secretary has a role too but again democratic accountability is at best remote and indirect. If as a citizen you are unhappy about some aspect of your local police force how do you make your views known and how can you invoke the voter’s ultimate sanction and get rid of someone who is underperforming?

Another assertion we are hearing as the elections get closer is “keep politics out of policing”. But how can that be? Policing is political. It is an arm of the state seeking to control (for good reasons or bad) the behaviour of its citizens. How the police handle protest demonstrations, for example, or which organisations they class as a threat to law-and-order and so justify infiltration and surveillance, or whether or not they choose to investigate allegations of phone-hacking, are highly political policies. Agreed, these questions are a long way from how often my local PCSOs run an operation to fine people for cycling on the pavement in Headington, but allocation of resources at a local level is not politically neutral either.

So I don’t have a problem with political parties sponsoring and supporting PCC candidates. This is not to say that Independent candidates have nothing to offer: they may well do, and will have an uphill struggle getting their messages across against the organisation and resources of the political parties. But although some may question whether PCCs will really have much influence over their local police forces, I see the introduction of an elected and accountable person as a step in the right direction.

And that is why I’ll be voting on 15 November.