Top Cop One Stop Swap Shop

The PCC candidates line up at Sedgemoor FM with some Haygrove students.
The PCC candidates line up at Sedgemoor FM with some Haygrove students.

This Thursday (5th May) we’re voting in the Police & Crime Commissioner elections for the next PCC in the Avon and Somerset area.  I’ll be voting for Kerry Barker the Labour Candidate because he’s clearly the best person for the job, an experienced criminal barrister with a vast catalogue of working in all areas of crime and in particular the crucial areas of child abuse, sexual offences and ill treatment of vulnerable adults. At every meeting he’s attended with the other 6 candidates he’s shone out as easy going, knowledgeable, sincere and decisive. So it was, in many respects, a good job that he sent his apologies to the Bridgwater hustings organised last night by  SedgemoorFM due to the sudden bereavement of one of his clients, so that we could focus on who else we might like to vote for – because in this election you get TWO votes. (if you want them) (maybe you don’t).

I'll be voting for Kerry Barker as my 'first preference'. Obviously.
I’ll be voting for Kerry Barker as my ‘first preference’. Obviously.

The Police and Crime Commissioner is a new role that replaced our local police authorities in 2012 and is responsible for holding the Chief Constable and police force to account on the public’s behalf, oversees how crime is tackled in their area and aims to make sure the police are providing a good service. The role also includes: meeting the public regularly to listen to their views on policing, producing a police and crime plan setting out local policing priorities, deciding how the budget will be spent and appointing Chief Constables and dismissing them if needed.

What do WE know?

Cllr Smedley bringing his vast experience of policing to the table.
Cllr Smedley bringing his vast experience of policing to the table.

We’ve all got a vote- even if we have no clue what’s going on or have never met the people we’re voting for. I myself have a vast wealth of police related experience. Not only did I play the part of a Policeman in the Sheep Worrying play ‘Brickyard Strike’ (1986) but I have a caution for ‘criminal damage to the Sun newspaper’ (obtained in the Bridgwater branch of WH Smiths when I was regularly sticking ‘don’t buy the Sun’ stickers on the ‘Sun‘ newspaper in support of striking printworkers, until one day when I got rather too interested in the content of one of the papers, took too long about it and got caught ) and once got nicked for masterminding the theft of a warehouse full of coca cola. Well, it was a corrugated iron shed with a hole in the back which half the village were nicking through, but it was me that got caught. Needless to say it was the sight of a uniformed copper coming down our drive and fear of the consequences that put me immediately off a life of crime.  Until the Brinksmat incident.

So we’ve all got our own stories and reasons to have an opinion on how we’re policed.

How do we vote?

Will policing ever be like it was 'in the olden days'?
Will policing ever be like it was ‘in the olden days’?

Now, in this election you can vote for 1 or 2 candidates. You mark your preferred candidate in column 1, and if you don’t like any others, then you leave it at that. However, you can also have a second bite at the cherry and mark your second choice in column 2. The first preferences are counted, and if a candidate has received more than 50% of the votes cast they are elected.If no candidate has more than 50% of the votes, all candidates apart from those in first and second place are eliminated.The ballot papers showing a first preference for the eliminated candidates are checked for their second preference. Any second preference votes for the two remaining candidates are then added to the candidates’ first preference votes and the candidate with the most votes wins.

Clear as mud? It boils down to you have 2 votes so you’ve got a bit more chance of getting who you want elected.

WHO do we vote for??

So it was great that the 7 candidates have been touring the region and meeting the public and it was great that Bridgwater’s own radio station Sedgemoor FM hosted an event for us at the YMCA.

I wasn’t sure who, if any of them, I’d give my second vote to. So I turned up and joined in asking questions along with the rest of the audience.

Sue Mountstevens (ind) discusses the issues with Marcia, a resident.
Sue Mountstevens (ind) discusses the issues with Marcia, a resident.

First we have to judge the record of the sitting PCC Sue Mountstevens. Sue is the only female candidate and is standing on a strictly ‘non-party’platform. She was elected last time round during a wave of animosity to any political party and some people think that’s great that we have an independent who’s accountable to everybody, but on the other hand she’s not actually really accountable to anybody except herself. Last night she was on the defensive crucially saying she had “unfinished business” in her role but blew it for me when she said “nobody is going to ride over the hill to give us more money”. Well, I suspect a future Labour government actually would, but then she doesn’t sign up to ‘Parties’ so unity , solidarity and team working clearly aren’t in her life experience and she can’t see how a strong party could effect the very changes she’s seeing as impossible -precisely because she’s an isolated, self-motivated independent. So not her.

Tory Mark Weston talks to Kipper Aaron Foot
Tory Mark Weston talks to Kipper Aaron Foot

In the Tory dominated South-West you’d expect a Tory to do well. Enter Mark Weston a North Bristol city councillor. I think he said he was a bank manager. And if he didn’t then he certainly did a good impression of one. The sort you might see sat behind a desk grimly refusing a student a loan to bring out his first punk rock single. I bear no grudges you see. Mark was well spoken, stressed ‘rural crime’ as a priority along with anti social behaviour and drugs. His big idea was to ‘put the community at the heart of policing’…well, he’d have to really seeing as his Government has cut back so many actual police officers. The audience didn’t seem particularly happy at ‘less’ policing so you’d have thought he won’t do that well. Oddly, he won’t be getting my second preference vote either. If I was faced with the choice of voting Tory or twatting Justin Bieber on the head with a shovel, I know which I’d choose.

Lib Dem Paul Crossley has a nice pair of glasses.
Lib Dem Paul Crossley has a nice pair of glasses.

So Lib Dem….often the other large party in South West England….but now a dim shadow of former glories following their desperately unwise coalition with the Tories. Paul Crossley, a polite, well-spoken, elderly gent with a pleasant vicar in a youth club demeanour, didn’t make too much impression on the meeting and spent much of the time staring out across the lovely sunny Meads that the massive windows of the YMCA meeting room overlooked. When he spoke he was attentive, sensible and unambitious and would certainly be a safe pair of mittens. If you wanted someone to run your jumble sale. He did admit at one point to being the victim of internet crime and said that he’d been almost impoverished by the theft of £2,000. I’d urge more car boot sales. But he still won’t get my second vote.

The bloke from UKIP….ANY bloke from UKIP wouldn’t get my vote. And this one was a bit odder than most. Which at one time was a benchmark for consecutive UKIP candidates. Aaron Foot isn’t a Farmer he’s a Farm Owner. Not sure why the distinction, maybe trying to woo the business community and not wanting to alienate the Farming community. But he was the youngest candidate so it was hard to fathom why he’d joined up to an essentially Tory Nostalgia club. But it soon became apparent he had the UKIP line off to a tee – ie make it up as you go along and contradict yourself. Clearly forgetting that UKIP were meant to NOT want closer European co-operation he thought that internet crime was a global issue and had to be solved through international co-operation, then he thought he might ‘lobby central government to stop the cuts’ , possibly unaware that UKIP councillors and their MP have been backing the cuts. Finally he thought he could sort out night time trouble spots by asking all the night clubs to close at different times. Best of luck with that then. Mind you, he does live in Wiltshire (which is outside of our area).

Former cop Kevin Phillips (ind) ever alert for the next crime incident.
Former cop Kevin Phillips (ind) ever alert for the next crime incident.

Then there was a second independent. Kevin Phillips had been a police officer for 26 years and knew it all. Kevin had an answer for everything, even if it wasn’t wise to say it. On the subject of Hinkley point he told everyone how he’d been at Severn Beach where a massive incoming workforce had encamped to build  the Severn Bridge. An ‘absolute nightmare’ will bring ‘serious problems’ and ‘make sure you get EDF to fund extra policing’. He probably should have known that we had done this.Well, if you want a blunt talking Northerner who calls a spade a sledgehammer then Kev’s your man. He didn’t like the new edge of town police stations like we have here because it was removing Bobbies on the beat from the community, which is true, but on the other hand he accepted the cuts and said he ‘wouldn’t write any cheques the Police force couldn’t cash’. Straight talking and Northern I like. Anti-Party and alarmist – not too keen on.

So how do I get rid of this second vote?? Strongly tempted to just vote for Labour man Kerry Barker a man with a plan – more officers on the beat (tick), officers who know their communities (tick) body cameras for all police officers (tick), reinstatement of specialist teams for child abuse, sex offence and domestic violence (tick,tick tick BOOM!).

Chris Briton, the Green Candidate, with a lovely bit of greenery behind him
Chris Briton, the Green Candidate, with a lovely bit of greenery behind him

And might just do that -but I had a sneaking appreciation for the Green candidate Chris Briton. The only candidate at the YMCA who laid the blame at the Tory doorstep for it’s devastating policies of austerity which are politically motivated and not need driven, the only candidate to be brave enough to consider the decriminalisation of some drugs in order to allow the Police to focus resources on real criminals rather than jailing vulnerable addicts. As an experienced drugs and alcohol counsellor he knew that vulnerable people needed to be in a safe place not a prison cell and that out of every 40 people an average of 10 would have mental health issues. Chris is an actual Somerset Councillor – from Wells, and let out a spontaneous mini-cheer when the Glastonbury festival was mentioned and maybe got slightly too excited when he had the chance to lead on the drugs issue, possibly un-nerving the group of Haygrove school kids in the front row, but he stuck to his guns ‘the war on drugs has failed‘, ‘Just saying No doesn’t work’, ‘prison doesn’t stop dependancy’ so why not legalise and tax like you do alcohol and tobacco? And he topped his performance off by lampooning Sue Mountstevens claims that there were drug users out there who thought they were ‘eating their own eyeballs’ or ‘eating their own arms’ as ‘scaremongering’ and called for a rational debate instead.

You have 2 votes on May 5th....make sure Kerry Barker is one of them
You have 2 votes on May 5th….make sure Kerry Barker is one of them

So someone who knows and blames Tory austerity for what it is – a policy not a necessity and is prepared to think outside the box from left field, might just get my second vote…..But Kerry Barker gets my first…and maybe only one…..

However, you can listen to the whole debate on SedgemoorFM by clicking here.

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