Race to become Gloucestershire's police tsar gets personal
The race to become Gloucestershire's new policing tsar has got personal.
Gloucester's Tory MP Richard Graham used a parliamentary debate to take a sideswipe at the Labour candidate Rupi Dhanda, arguing her husband, and his predecessor, Parmjit, had campaigned for the abolition of the Gloucestershire force she was now seeking to be commissioner of.
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Candidate Rupi Dhanda
In turn Mrs Dhanda expressed her disappointment that the only county MP to speak in the opposition debate chose to attack her husband rather than focus on police cuts.
Voters across England and Wales are due to go to the polls on November 15 to elect a police and crime commissioner for each force area. They will replace appointed local police authorities.
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The PCC, who will be paid £65,000 a year in Gloucestershire, will have the power to hire and fire chief constables and will also set the force's budget and "strategic direction".
Experts predict turnout could be as low as 15 per cent and the Government has been criticised for holding the elections in winter and not making enough efforts to publicise the elections and failing to offer candidates a free mail shot with their policies.
In an intervention during the policing debate, Mr Graham agreed with a Conservative colleague interest in candidates for election was "very high".
He added: "Many of my constituents want to know why the wife of the former Member of Parliament for Gloucestershire, who campaigned specifically to abolish to Gloucestershire constabulary, is now standing to be the police commissioner for that very force. Does he agree that some curiosities are emerging?"
Tory MP Andrew Percy said: "All I can say in response to him is that you literally could not make it up. It gets more ridiculous by the day."
But speaking after the debate, Mrs Dhanda said: "I am really disappointed of the six (Gloucestershire) MPs who could have made a contribution to the debate, the only who did used it to attack my husband rather than contributing to a serious debate on police cuts."
During the debate, Labour's Shadow Policing Minister David Hanson raised concerns about the way the Government was cutting police budgets, insisting that dropping the number of officers on the front line would lead to rising crime.
Responding to opposition criticism, Mr Graham said: "In the county of Gloucestershire last year, costs went down by four per cent and crime went down by four per cent."
The Tory MP told a Labour member: "Would he prefer to say to my constituents, "We want to see expenditure up, crime up and your council bills going up as well"? Is that the message he would like to give out?"
Comments
by Bonkim2003
Sunday, October 28 2012, 6:03PM
“Walker100 - public debate between non-descripts - would be interesting to see how many turn up apart from party-supporters and what the usefulness of the discussion generated.
In any case, too late this year - may be next time round when people have learnt the value if any and/or other benefits and ask meaningful questions - I bet the public and the candidates standing for election have little or no idea what is in store.”
by Bonkim2003
Sunday, October 28 2012, 5:56PM
“Glosyap/Valhalla/areaman - look beyond the £65K/year salary for the post and election costs - the post will require an office and staff, specialist advisors/ researchers, consultants, PR personnel, liaison oficers, their wages/fees/pensions, numerous meetings and visits, etc, etc, with all an sundry including that with local and county councils, government ministers and of course the Police hierarchy - and all their travelling and subsistence expenses, ultimately the bill to be paid by you and me - will exceed the base salaries several-fold. I would also not be surprised if there were to be an annual convention of Police Commissioners and international visits to Tokyo or New York to learn from best practice.”
by Areaman
Sunday, October 28 2012, 4:10PM
“Glosyap - I don't think anyone would say that the purpose of police and crime commissioners is to save money. It would be cheaper to replace all of elected representatives with appointees - doesn't mean it would be right to do so.”
by GlosYap2
Sunday, October 28 2012, 12:12PM
“Areaman, this isnt a Blue-Yellow-Red issue, unfortunately due to the style of political implementation of these posts it has turned into that. The "cheaper" option would still undoubtably add further costs far surpassing the 50k you are talking about so my question is still valid - why is a pro-cuts administration supporting the vast expenditure needed to create and maintain these posts in the middle of an recession?.”
by Areaman
Sunday, October 28 2012, 11:23AM
“Glosyap - very true - I was only referring to the salary issue. Remember nationally the Lib Dems forced the elections to be held in November, this time only I think, rather than the much cheaper option of having them in May.”
by GlosYap2
Sunday, October 28 2012, 11:15AM
“Areaman,
50k "saved"? Absolute Rubbish! That figure is dwarfed by the amount extra spent on having elections in the first place!!! The cost of having PCC elections nationally is 75 million pounds minimum EACH time. During a time of ALLEGED austerity how the hell can a pro-spending cuts administration justify the cost of this pet project???”
by Areaman
Friday, October 26 2012, 5:35PM
“Valhalla - you're paying 17 members of the police authority £8k each to do the job at the minute. £65k will save us over £50k each year.”
by valhalla2010
Friday, October 26 2012, 4:21PM
“Exactly who is going to pay the new police 'tsar' £65k? Us, that's who. What is the purpose of the role, I don't get it.
Surely each chief constable is given direction by the Home Secretary, do we need another layer meddeling with matters?”
by CfromGlos
Friday, October 26 2012, 4:06PM
“I made a comment on a report about this some time ago and that was deleted too. Again nothing but factual information!”
by GlosYap2
Friday, October 26 2012, 1:11PM
“Unfortunately this is the difference between politics and everyday life - imagine the headline "Race to become Chief Surgeon gets personal". This sort of politicking is exactly why we should have people in jobs who know what they are doing and NOT people who only get to be in posts because they know how to do "politics".”