Labour Defends PCC Position

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Shadow Home Secretary says decision to field candidates is making "the best of a bad job".

Date - 19th February 2012
Courtesy of - Nic Brunetti - Police Oracle

10 Comments

Labour has defended its position to field candidates for police and crime commissioner elections, saying it is making the “best of a bad situation”.

Shadow Home Secretary Yvette Cooper said that while the party was still opposed to their introduction, it would campaign with its own candidates on a platform of fighting cuts.

But Ms Cooper insisted the £125 million to be spent on the elections was a waste of money and could be put towards funding more officers.

She said: “The £125 million David Cameron wants to spend on elections and setting them up could pay for 3,000 new police constables instead.”

Ms Cooper added that Government spending cuts of 20 per cent to police forces and the loss of 16,000 officers meant that introducing the commissioners could still not be justified.

She added: “Labour has consistently opposed these plans as we believe this is the wrong policy, the wrong priority and at the wrong time.

“If Labour was in power tomorrow we would stop these plans.”

Ms Cooper also criticised the timing of the elections in November.

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Christopher - Sun, 19 February 2012
As an independent intending to stand for a post of P&CC I think the 'costs' are a red herring. This reminds me of the 'BA tail paining' debacle where it was alleged to cost a HUGE amount ... until it was pointed out the the tails HAD to be painted so painting art instead of the British flag would in fact cost very little.

P&CC's will cost very little, if you take into account the already substantial cost of ALL the Police Authority's, their head, legal executive, permanent staff and press and IT back ups.

Get over the costs and start a real debate.

Will they be political, and that would be very much worse than the current system, or will they at least be directly accountable which is something the current authority's are not!!!!!!!!
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Obiter_Dicta - Fri, 24 February 2012
@Christopher : Your analagy of BA is entirely the point that frustrates many in the Police, you have offered up your pearl of wisdom as an "I know best" form of patronising, yet anyone who knows anything about the BA affair will tell you that despite the truths of the actual figures it was a branding disaster for BA that was quickly exploityed by Virgin Atlantic, BA conceeded this very quickly and returned to the Union flag on its tail fins. My point is, be careful about lecturing to Professionals with an over simplistic argument, Policing is complex and multi faceted, You will fail to bring a work force with you and will not impress an electorate.
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