Police and Crime Commissioner elections: Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?
Essentially the current administration of Eton educated Latin scholars has asked this question and come to the conclusion that we, the plebian proletariat, should decide who should watch the watchmen, which is why we are all expected to troop off to the polling station on Thursday (15 November) to cast our ballots to elect our Police and Crime Commissioners (PPC) - 37 of them across England and four in Wales.
Some may say that this will make the police more accountable and will further democratise one of our public services, namely the police, as unelected Police Authorities will be replaced by a PPC. Others will argue that we run the risk of further politicising the police and their activities and replace a committee of well informed, well intentioned Police Authority members with great experience and breadth of knowledge of crime and how it affects our respective areas with an individual who doesn't have to have any experience of policing as a prerequisite of candidacy.
Whichever view you subscribe to, these elections are upon us and it behoves us in the pub trade to find out who our local candidates are, what they are promising in their election manifestos and consider what will happen to local policing under their authority.
The government assures us PPCs will have no operational control of our police forces especially where the diminishing resource of front-line officers will be deployed and what the priorities of those officers will be in the execution of their duties. My fear, and this is a fear shared by many discussing this issue in the media, is that they will, if not by the very dint of being able to hire and fire Chief Constables and oversee police budgets.
One can easily imagine a PPC suggesting a Chief Constable immediately puts resources to a perceived problem that the PPC has become exercised about and the Chief Constable resisting this instruction. Result? The PPC sacks the Chief Constable and replaces that officer with one that will do their bidding.
Far-fetched? Not really, the Mayor of London has for many years been London's PPC and the current incumbent has already sacked one Metropolitan Police Commissioner, Sir Ian Blair. He was forced to eventually resign after a bitter (and very public) showdown with the Tory Mayor of London, Boris Johnson, who said he had no confidence in him, the first time in modern history a Met Commissioner has been as good as sacked.
Is this a scenario we want played out across the country? Well, in some respects, it's too late, the change is upon us, but there is still just a little time to influence the choice of whom we are all going to get. So find out what your local candidate is proposing, think about how it's going to affect your business and your customers and above all make sure you vote.
Despite the old anarchist graffito of "It doesn't matter who you vote for, they always get in", it does matter and if you get an anti-pub commissioner elected in your area you'll soon know about it. You think late night levies will remain the province of city and town centre pubs only? You think that pub closure orders by the police won't be used by hysterical PPCs in response to health lobbyists and neo-prohibitionists? You think that scarce resources won't be deployed only in areas where the most votes for the PPC were cast?
We get precious few opportunities to exercise our democratic right in this country and it would be a shame to squander this one. If nothing else, it'll get you out of the pub for half an hour and who knows you might get a PPC that understands the invaluable role that pubs play in the social cohesion of the communities that both they and the police serve.
