Issues with the vote for a new police commissioner (From Salisbury Journal)

Issues with the vote for a new police commissioner

4:48pm Wednesday 29th August 2012 in Salisbury Letters

NOTHING can be added to Mr Lockyer’s thoughts on policing, but a word might be said on behalf of the ordinary voter solicited to elect a Police and Crime Commissioner (Journal, August 23).

In local elections, I vote for the candidate I know of and whose record I acknowledge, regardless of party. I may now be canvassed on behalf of people of whom I probably know nothing, and therefore cannot easily evaluate how suitable they would be for such a post, whether or not they belong to the political party I happen to favour.

Many voters in this position, I believe, would simply abstain. The turnout would be ludicrously low, giving next to no credibility to the winner and imposing, as Mr Lockyer rightly says, yet another expensive and needless administrative tier.

RICHARD MERWOOD, Salisbury