Police and Crime Commissioners, Putting Corrupt Politicians in Charge of Law and Order

By: Nadeem_Walayat

This week saw the latest in a long list of corrupt politicians being caught with their hands in the cookie jar, another MP fiddling his expenses by presenting fraudulent invoices for reimbursement, who's punishment is apparently just a 12month ban from the House of Commons, with far more evading exposure than make it into the mainstream press headlines. All of this is taking place in the run up to the handing over responsibility for holding England and Wales police forces to account to some 41 politicians that will follow a rubber stamping exercise along party lines that masquerades as an Election on November 15th, that will be lucky to secure a turnout of even 20% (which idiot picked picked the middle of November for an election?) which is set against 65% that turned out for the last general election.

Despite the fact that there is no appetite amongst the general population for PCC's which is why no amount of scare mongering TV ads will get them out to vote, this is the conservative party attempting to exert greater political power over the actions of the police forces, the consequences of which will be that the the police rather than playing their part in attempting to hold corrupt politicians to account will instead be more easily employed in looking the other way or even covering up crimes.

Now don't get me wrong for we do need the police to be much better held to account than the Police Authorities, as senior police officers from the Chief Constable down, who being human can and do engage in cover-ups and criminal conspiracies of which the latest scandal to break was the criminal cover-up surrounding the Hillsborough disaster that involves a conspiracy that runs into the hundreds of police officers right across the spectrum in terms of seniority.

Where's Batman ?

In my opinion putting easily corruptible politicians in charge of the police forces is a recipe for disaster as we are likely discover over the coming years. Unless there is an additional independant agency that is able to hold the Police Commissioners to account, along the lines of Gotham cities Commissioner Gordon having BatMan constantly on his back to ensure that he thinks twice before putting that fake invoice in for several thousand pounds, or wandering off on a fact finding trip to the Caribbean at tax payer expense.

Whilst batman is fiction, there are persons who could be charged with keeping a close eye on the PPC's, namely judges with a team of accountants and investigative officers who could be charged with performing regular audits of PPC activities.

Conservatives Hand Over Control of UK Police Forces to Labour Gravy Train Riders

Unfortunately as things stand the PPC's in future years will likely be seen as a complete disaster, as effectively all they will amount to is political dinosaurs being given chauffeur driven retirement packages for each of the two major parties. In this instance the Labour party who opposed the creation of Police and Crime Commissioner posts, will be the clear winner, as the Conservatives, supposedly the party for law and order have effectively scored a huge own goal by handing over control of most of Britain's police force's to an assortment of Labour characters including ex Ministers and MP's, many of whom were criticised over their abuse of MP expenses, and a number had to repay tens of thousands of pounds and were lucky not to be prosecuted for alleged expenses fraud.

The coalition will have spent around £100 million on PCC elections all in the name of savings costs, whilst through the process handing over control of most of the police forces to the Labour party. The Tory / Lib-Dem coalition will be lucky to win one fifth of the 41 posts up for grabs given that the Coalition at mid-term is at it's maximum level of unpopularity. This is indicative of a very weak government that is prone to making huge blunders right across the spectrum and is sowing the seeds for a huge Labour victory at the 2015 general election.

So those most critical of the role of Police and Crime Commissioner, and many of whom have no relevant experience, will now be in charge of the police forces as a consequence of the huge carrot of £100k+ annual salaries plus EXPENSES and so it remains to be seen if we will see a re-run of the MP expenses scandal with PCC's in a few years time.

What is the Big Picture?

What is the Conservative party's over-riding strategy behind PPC's ? I suspect for the answer one needs to look deep into the belie of the beast where we will find politicians eager to auction off contracts to private corporations that they have interests in. Therefore under the guise of saving money, police activities will increasingly be contracted out to the private sector by at least Conservative PCC's.

By Nadeem Walayat

http://www.marketoracle.co.uk

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Nadeem Walayat has over 25 years experience of trading derivatives, portfolio management and analysing the financial markets, including one of few who both anticipated and Beat the 1987 Crash. Nadeem's forward looking analysis focuses on UK inflation, economy, interest rates and housing market. He is the author of three ebook's - The Inflation Mega-Trend; The Interest Rate Mega-Trend and The Stocks Stealth Bull Market Update 2011 that can be downloaded for Free.

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