Fraser Nelson Fraser Nelson

My week in Westminster

I’m presenting Radio Four’s Week in Westminster this morning, on deficit wars, London wars, welfare wars, and another set of wars which no one has really discussed yet: the directly-elected police commissioners. There will be about 40 of them elected in November, and candidates are already emerging: Nick Ross (ex-Crimewatch), Colonel Tim Collins and London mayoral hopeful Brian Paddick. I
interview two names that have been thrown into the frame, both former ministers and both women: Jane Kennedy (Labour) and Ann Widdecombe (Tory). I wanted to find out just how excited we should be about these elected police commissioners.

The theory is very simple: that right now, England’s constabularies report to the Home Office and their priorities can be skewed towards those of a bureaucracy, not of the people that they serve. And that democratic control would realign police priorities with those whom they are paid to protect. Also, everyone knows what a difference a good police chief can make: Bill Bratton’s ‘broken windows’ policing policy in New York is famous for turning the city’s crime around.

Widdecombe, a former prisons officer, tells me that she had been approached to stand but decided not to because there’s no power to do anything useful in the job.

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