So as I was thinking recently, I
realised something. As, you know, hardly anyone reads this blog, I
can talk about whatever I like with barely any repercussions. So
today, I will start by discussing... the police commissioner
elections!
Okay, so the potential repercussions of
this topic avoided... was less about the controversy and it's fallout
and more about having avoided people leaving on mass in boredom
because there is no mass of people in the first place.
Sort of how Norton Antivirus prevents
you from getting virus's from the internet by preventing you from
getting on the internet.
So the police commissioner elections
were today, and if that's new to you, well, that's kinda not your
fault. On the face of it I think it's a pretty bloody stupid idea.
Call me weird, but I kinda like the idea that cops are, ya know,
cops. I don't want political cops. Nope. It's bad enough that we have
the blurring of lines when it comes to cops and actual politicians,
where they tread lightly and with a lot of deference, and the 'Well,
we are investigating you, and you'll be doing us a big favour sir if
you come to the station now – oh, yes, we can wait. We'll come
tomorrow. Please don't destroy any evidence in the interim sir,' we
get whenever have to sheepishly get up to arrest an MP. Now that 'plebgate'
row may have shaken things up a bit, (and certainly the
ill-feeling over harsh budget cuts hasn't helped) but if I call back
to my praise-heaped review of Snuff – I really like a cop
modelled on Sam Vimes. He'll arrest the bloody Patrician, his
tyrannical leader. He'll arrest the gods for doing it wrong. True
equality; everyone may get a truncheon to the head in the course of
conducting inquires.
So a person controlling cops playing
party politics fills me with dread. But hey, it's happening, it's
happened, deal with it. But as I went to vote today, I noticed
something. No one was there.
There were two people manning my
station, the public hall, and a quick inquiry told me that out of
fifteen hundred on the electoral register only eighty three had
turned up. They said they were hopeful more would arrive as work
ended (I voted at half five, so a good five and a half hours left to
go) but they didn't deliver that news with much conviction. One of
the major problems was firstly: no one cares. Regardless who is voted
in, it is generally believed that there'll be little change. The
second problem is that no one knows anything about this damn
election, or the people involved, or that it's happening. Some of the
most politically minded people I know were scrabbling for any
information on this election, when I'm used to them being a fountain
of politically informed bullcrap.
This is kinda a problem. Firstly, it
does matter. On my slate, let's pick on two candidates; one believes
that being a mother solely qualifiers her in some away, the other is
a member of the English Democrat thing, which can basically be summed
up as 'ignorant racist bellends.' (Ahem. I should of prefixed that
with something safe, like, 'in my opinion are...')
So there. Slow claps all round there.
Secondly, this thing has barely been promoted. The only information I
got was a link provided on my polling card. That was it. No radio
announcements, no adverts, no leaflets, or at least none that really
penetrated. This is certainly a problem because we still have a
generation or so of people with little to no access or understanding
of computers and this really puts them in a lurch. At the polling
station they mentioned many people aged fifty and above – one of
the most active voting groups, mind – expressing their frustrations
over how little they knew and how little this election had been
promoted. Clearly they weren't turning up much in response. Hell, the
only things I saw in the tabloids, our news for the people! ...was a
begging plea of The Daily Mirror to vote Labour candidates to
try and protect coppers form another round of budget cuts. Which was
done today. On the election day. So if you weren't registered you're
too late now.
Well done Daily Mirror. Way to
push a campaign there. Slow claps all round.
For my votes, I chose a retired cop and
then the public-cop liaison person, who were incidentally the most
qualified candidates by a considerable long shot, and the independent
candidates to boot. Yay! Let coppers be coppers! Also loving the way
this was not done by First Past The Post. So it's not good enough for
party leader elections and now our police commissioner elections, but
it's still good enough for our general elections? Heh. Thank you
Clegg, Traitor King. I'm still cranky over that, but don't mind me;
if you disagree, take comfort we won't be discussing electoral reform
seriously for another thirty/forty years. Deep joy.
It seems like our government pushed
ahead with this thing... before remembering they don't really like
change. But they were committed now, so they made a token effort.
Should have done a Clegg and just ignored what they said before
(Boom! Fuck you, Clegg! I've decided you're my personal running
joke now.) Hell, my experience with low turnout doesn't appear to be an alien one.
With such low turnout, will these commissioners have any justifiable
power? Yeah, getting twenty percent of a ten percent turnout; they'll
have coppers falling over themselves desperate to listen to every
word they have to say.
So, in summary, pointless dead election
for pointless position is pointless. On the plus side, Three Mobile
got back to me about my open letter! Email. Whatever. Okay, so it
wasn't their CEO writing back to me. Okay, so they misspelled my
name. And they asked me to give their customer service a call... so
they either clearly didn't get the point I was trying to make or they
believe I have a masochist fetish.
But! Progress! I have wasted someone's
time!
Just like I did yours.
Sorry about that.
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