by Kevin Meagher

Ed Miliband was right in the Commons yesterday: spending £25 million postponing elections for the 41 proposed police and crime commissioners is a waste of money that could instead pay the wage bill (presumably before overtime) of 2000 coppers.

Cameron should be ashamed of himself. And he was doing so well: police commissioners are one of the few things he has got right. He should have stuck to his guns and held the elections next May, as planned. Unfortunately he has caved-in to Lib Dem backwoodsmen in the Lords who have pushed for the polling day to be postponed back to November 2012 to “depoliticise” the issue.

Whenever police commissioners arrive, the resource-intensive, low performance culture of British policing will at long last get a democratic makeover. They will be a shot in the arm for accountability in a key frontline public service and a finger in the eye for complacent chief constables. The public’s priorities might, for once, get a look in.

The only snag is that Labour opposes elected police commissioners. Why? Nobody knows why. But oppose them we do. On grounds, it seems, of cost and because they will politicise policing (whatever that is supposed to mean). (more…)