Police commissioners - did you vote?

[MrGongGong]

Maybe not. Great to see a big UKIP rise, of course, but these are always protest votes

Some idiots will always vote for Santa and other fantasy ideas

The government has quite a different attitude towards trade union ballots, which are belittled when the turnout is 42%, but apparently it's OK when police commissioner elections only attract 14% of voters. Have I missed something?

NOPE

They have no mandate anyway
at least Obama was elected by a majority of people who Voted

I would have voted for whoever has the batphone

I would guess the only significant figures are the spoilt papers and the turnout the rest means nothing

[french frank]

A very, very, clear pattern.

It is a clear pattern, but also the predictable result, since Mensch snatched it off Labour at the last election. First Labour by-election win over the Tories in 15 years? Yes, but explained by the fact that Labour were in government for most of the time and by-election wins are typically against the (unpopular) governing party.

Englun swings like a pendalum do ...

[MrGongGong]

Englun swings like a pendalum do ...

From slightly leftish tory..... to middle tory.......to rightish tory

it's like compression on Orchestral recordings
no contrast

[Paul Sherratt]

ff,

A big prize awaits if you can sew another Roger Miller song in to your next post.

[DracoM]

Didn't vote, wrote to MP to explain why. Dangerous precedent. Americanisation of Britain. Who the hell are these 'worthies' that they dare to police in my name? Do NOT want my police dancing to party political tunes. Spoken to several police-personnel, and they are appalled and despairing. So am I.

[amateur51]

Maybe not. Great to see a big UKIP rise, of course, but these are always protest votes and the GE won't follow the same pattern, but will, as almost always, depend on what is happening with the economy at the time...

SuperMac had it right when he said "Events, dear boy, events!" No-one knows what events may have happened by May 2015

As regards the Police Commissioner vote, I agree with all those who think it a total waste of time and money. None of us here voted, indeed nobody in the whole village, as far as I could tell, knew anything about any of the candidates!

Is this due to voter apathy/indifference or the "separation (hafrada) fence" that has been erected around the village by popular demand?

[Anna]

As regards the Police Commissioner vote, I agree with all those who think it a total waste of time and money. None of us here voted, indeed nobody in the whole village, as far as I could tell, knew anything about any of the candidates!

Perhaps you could have enlightened the yokels, being as you are the only one in the village with internet access (assuming you could tear them away from The Archers) Surely, it was your public duty to do so? As their Squire?
(Does Simon appear in Downton Abbey?)

[Lateralthinking1]

The view now of the average member of the public towards elected representatives is that you can't roller skate in a buffalo herd. Better to stay at home I think than to vote for a bunch of plastic chickens who couldn't organise a scaup scaup in a duck house.

[amateur51]

Perhaps you could have enlightened the yokels, being as you are the only one in the village with internet access (assuming you could tear them away from The Archers) Surely, it was your public duty to do so? As their Squire?
(Does Simon appear in Downton Abbey?)

[ahinton]

He meant a serial trouble maker.

Ah, I see; thanks for that. So he's the kind of person who introduces unwelcome tonal references into tone-rows and octaves and the like into atonal serial pieces. OK, I understand now, though quite how that would affect his stance on the thread topic remains less than clear to someone as dense as I appear to be.

[jean]

Despite my reservations about the whole thing, I did vote in the police commissioner elections because we had a good Independent candidate. Labour won, but the Tory managed to come second...how?

All on a turnout of only just over 12%.

http://www.liverpooldailypost.co.uk/liverpool-news/regional-news/2012/11/16/jane-kennedy-elected-as-merseyside-s-first-police-and-crime-commissioner-100252-32246574/

[french frank]

ff,

A big prize awaits if you can sew another Roger Miller song in to your next post.

Another one, Paul? What was the first one?

[ahinton]

Perhaps you could have enlightened the yokels, being as you are the only one in the village with internet access (assuming you could tear them away from The Archers) Surely, it was your public duty to do so? As their Squire?
(Does Simon appear in Downton Abbey?)

Since the series is now over apart from the unsurprisingly threatened one-off Christmas edition, should that question not read "did Simon appear in Downton Abbey"? Since Downton Abbey - or more properly Highclere Castle - is in so-called "Royal" Berkshire and Simon apparently hails from deepest rural Derbyshire, I rather doubt it, but I cannot be certain, of course; that said, he'd presumably need to be a member of Equity for that and I don't think that he is one. The Archers? So yokels in his village do have radios then, even if they don't have internet access? (Yes, I have heard of The Archers - even though an organist friend once told me that he didn't care how long it had been running, he got there first, on the grounds that there can be no Archers without Bowyers). You might have asked if Simon appears (or rather participates) in The Archers - but you didn't.

Anyway, to return to more serious matters in general and the thread topic in particular, there can surely be no excuse for tacitly accepting the outcome of these elections given that the across the board turnout in them has been a mere fraction of the very worst ones that have been experienced in general or local government elections in living memory; that surely speaks for itself and I do think that most of us here, including Simon himself, regarded them at best as a waste of time and money during the non-campaign and have only had their worst fears realised in those turnout figures that seem to me to reveal something far worse than mere apathy.

[ahinton]

Another one, Paul? What was the first one?

The one whose second line is
Bobbies on bicycles two by two
which in itself seems to be a case of one rule for the cops and one for the rest of the nation's cyclists who are told not to cycle two abreast on the public highway - not that I've seen a police officer driving a bicycle for more years than I care to remember (which is hardly surprising since they're awfully awkward things on which to mount blue lights and less use than a chocolate teapot when chasing a stolen getaway Lamborghini)...

[Anna]

I do think that most of us here, including Simon himself, regarded them at best as a waste of time and money during the non-campaign and have only had their worst fears realised in those turnout figures that seem to me to reveal something far worse than mere apathy.

That's all very well, but at least those of us here that voted have kept an odious little *$@% with a dismal track record out of the running!