Police and Crime Commissioner elections - important

[Needmoresleep]

All sorts of elections are taking place in early May. Postal votes will be dropping through letter boxes any day now.

The expectation is that many will vote either for the party they have always voted for, or to express dissatisfaction with the current government, and the worry is that the PCC vote will go the same way.

Please don't do this. If we want Stonewall to stop training and advising our police forces, we need people vote for the PCC candidate who explicitly says they won't allow Stonewall to influence their force.

In some cases this will be the Conservative or a Conservatively minded independent, which might not be a bad thing. The next Government is very likely to be Labour with a strong majority. Labour along with LibDems and Greens will also dominate Local Authorities. PCCs who are willing to stand up and protect their forces against Stonewallification will be a useful, indeed essential, brake.

I understand that one of the women's organisations are surveying candidates across the country and, once they have responses, will give more guidance. In the meantime think before using your postal vote.

And, FWIW, David Sidwick the incumbent in Dorset, is a good bloke, who works hard and takes his job seriously. (I know him!)

Annoyingly, the LD candidate doesn’t have an email contact. You have to go via a form on their website.

One good question to ask independents is about who is funding them. In many ways PCCs should not be affiliated to political parties, so "independent" sounds better. However someone has to be funding them, whether family money, dodgy local businessman or whatever. Independence from a party position does not mean total independence.

This is the reply I got from the Conservative (present incumbent). I asked the three questions, plus one of my own.
Nothing as yet from any other candidate.

Thank you for your email.

Ensuring all communities in West Mercia are safe and feel is important to me, and at the centre of my work as PCC.

I am not aware of different sex searches in West Mercia, and indeed I am reassured that the Chief Constables policy is that searches should be by the same sex.

As you would expect, I require West Mercia Police to record crime and incidents in line with the Home Office Crime Recording standards that they are statutorily required to do.

My approach to inclusion more generally is that it should never be at the cost of someone elses exclusion. There is inequality in our community, and our focus should be to reduce it, not create further inequality along the way.

I hope that assists.

I emailed all the candidates with the 3 questions. I got an immediate acknowledgement from the Conservative (present incumbent) and then a substantive reply 48 hours later confirming that yes, she would if she could. Which at least is a statement of intent.

Nothing from the others.

I’ve emailed the questions to both candidates here that have email addresses

You wonder about people running for any high office that make it difficult for people to get in touch with them. Are they not serious or are they just stupid?

Or perhaps they think that most people don’t care, so they don’t bother.

Thanks for the prompt. I have the choice of 4. Three of them mention rural crime, which quite an issue where I live (nighthawks, coursing, theft and arson on farms, 36 hrs to respond to burglaries, miles to the nearest police station, about 6 cops on duty for an area of 80-100sq miles), so glad to see that they have woken up to that.

Only the Tory mentions VAWG.

Think I might have to email them all...

Sort of why I started the thread.

Unless you have your own resources, people need party backing to stand. Running is expensive as you have to cover several constituencies and, unlike MPs, don't have a postal allowance etc. Where they will have little chance of winning, major parties will put up a paper candidate and make very little effort with the campaign just hoping that their candidate gets carried along with a popular vote.

I understand that the Dorset hustings were interesting. The labour guy was pleasant enough by presumably relying on picking up some of the anti-Tory vote expected for the local elections. The independent seemed out of her depth, with rumours that she jumped in, funded by her husband, thinking it would be her chance to make a difference, realising too late that actually it is a substantial and important job and that issues like crime relating to asylum seekers in local hotels and on barges are quite complex. She gets flustered when she meets opposition and seems to have deleted her Twitter account. Worryingly she is very much on the TRA bandwagon. The incumbent is a Tory who seems to made a good fist of his first three years, achieved a good rapport with the Chief Constable, and has already incurred the ire of Stonewall.

I wonder whether the Home Office should set a minimum standard before people can stand. I know that you are expected to know a certain amount about the NHS before sitting on a NHS Trust Board. PCCs were set up to bring greater democracy but standing needs money, and money can come with strings.

It’s definitely made me a bit suspicious of them. The two I emailed have email, X/Twitter and Facebook details all available. The third has a phone number and address

I’ve had one standard thanks for the email, will message you soon type reply.

Emailed three of my local,candidates. Didn't bother with the Greens' one, it was easy to see that our viewpoints on the issue wouldn't align.

Think I know which counties as this is my choice as well, wishy washy and not much between them

only the conservative one has emailed me back so far

Tory candidate (current incumbent) has responded very quickly

1. What is a woman?
Adult Human female with 2 X chromosomes
2. Will you ensure that women are searched only by female police officers
To day under PACEit defines
intimate searches(sometimes referred toas strip search ) as same SEX searches. In additions any prisoner can object to the person searching and asking for an alternative. This does not include on the street searches, in hot pursuit, looking for weapons etc. A&S are redrafting their Stop andSerach police and are including consultation with various Women Rights Groups.

1. Will you ensure that all crime data will be recorded by sex, not ‘gender’?

I am trying to. Currently the Records system produced by aCanadian software house (Niche Technology) refers to gender. I have asked for this glitch to be corrected and it is on the list to be changed. I dont have a time scale for this fix. 3. Will you ensure that sex,not 'gender', will be in all force policies and practices ? Again I am trying to. I ended the contract with Stonewall as they were becoming part of the problem and not the solution. There are many policies that need to be revised and it is work in progress.

Sorry for formatting mess!

I emailed all 4 of mine 3 questions based on the Free Speech Union questions. I’ve had no reply from Lib Dem or Labour. The Lib Dem candidate has been Tweeting about how the Cass review is rubbish so I didn’t really expect to hear from him.

I received a couple of paragraphs of utter waffle from the Plaid Cymru guy, sent a clarification asking him to answer the questions and received more of the same.

The Conservative replied saying he thinks gender identity has no place in policing. He will ensure sex is recorded. That public communication will be accurate in describing sex and that interviews and forensic examination will be same sex care.

Unless I hear from Labour saying the same thing then the Conservative candidate has my vote. Which considering I was a member of the Labour Party for years is quite depressing really

I emailed all three. Lib Dem acknowledged then sent a response that answered none of the questions a few days later. Labour and Conservative never even acknowledged. So I tagged them all on Twitter a few days ago and still nothing.

I'm another Thames Valley resident who is going to hold their nose and vote Tory for the first time in my life. Matthew Barber has it bang on the money. I've met him a few times in person for work related things and he's a nice chap in person as well

ShowOfHands · 14/04/2024 10:32

The Labour candidate mentions supporting Women and Girls as a priority, but no details.

Yes, what do they mean by that? Women and girls, or any one who says he is a woman or girl? I can't find out much about mine, but I have an email address for the Tory PCC candidate, who I feel I could vote for - but not if he was going for mayor, or MP.

I'll let you know if I get a reply.

Scratch that, the list of candidates describes him as Conservative, but his website says he's independent.

My PCC is a Tory who's allowed TWAW in our force under his watch.

I am VERY interested in what our PCC candidates are thinking in terms of gender ideology, but it's not been easy to find out and none of them are exactly shouting their views from the rooftops.

Telling people to just vote for the Tory because you're expecting them to be GC is a big, big assumption. We need to encourage candidates to nail their colours to the mast.

👋 Hi, ‘utterly deluded’ person here that will most definitely be voting for Matthew Barber.

I have emailed 4 of the candidates. I’ve just asked what they think of our Police Force standing on Stonewalls top 100 list, and said that I-will be voting on this issue.