Hear the voice of the Baird!

Who present, past, and future sees;

Whose ears have heard,

The voters word,

That walks among the PCCs…

…with apologies to William Blake…

And so it came to pass that the Boiler-suit-in-chief, Vera Baird, was once more returned to paid employment.

83.2%% of the electorate stayed at home, preferring to trim their nostril hair, watch Nadine Dorries munch an Ostiche’s anus, or desolately watching the gas meter inexorably consuming their Christmas bonus. 

3,887 turned out and wrote ‘none of the above’, or ‘I’m bored witless by this’ on their ballot paper.

45,845 voted for the Conservative candidate, a former policeman.

18,876 thought the UKIP candiate would make a better fist of things.

13,916 were prepared to give the Lib-Dems the benefit of the doubt.

9.4% of the electorate dutifully voted Labour and decided that Vera was the very person to have the authority to decide whether the Chief Constable of Northumbria should concentrate on speeding offences or spend her time chasing Facebook commentators rash enough to opine that ‘Our Sharon is a bit of a slag’…

If she doesn’t make the right choice, (in her eyes) then Vera can boot her out. It used to take nine different people to make that decision, but now the power is all Vera’s. Such is democracy.

She is already complaining that it is all the fault of the nasty Tories that so many people found their toenails more interesting than voting.

Strangely, even the left wing media is ignoring Vera’s appointment. More column inches have been devoted this morning to the resounding punch on the nose that the voters have delivered to Lard Prescott. There is a low key entry in the Guardian in the manner of a standard obituary – and that is it…apart from the ever loyal Northern Echo reporting that she had nothing whatsoever to say about crime or policing in the area, just that she was pissed off that the Tories had chosen to hold the election in the winter…

I would love to be able to tell you of all the good things Vera is going to do for the benighted inhabitants of Northumbria, but in the early hours of this morning she found time to block one Anna Raccoon from her Twitter feed…

Seems she doesn’t want to risk me informing my readers of how she has finally been demoted to the level of her own incompetence and is making a success of something…well, she might do!

You’ll just have to make do with the new Vera Baird category on this blog where you can read all about her past shenanigans and any other interesting snippets that readers send me.

Andrew Duffin
November 18, 2012 at 12:07

The electorate is not as daft or as gullible as people seem to think.

Most will have concluded that (a) it’s just another damned party political
bunfight and (b) these people will have no real power anyway.

So might as well stay at home.

Sensible position to take, in the circumstances.

binao November 18, 2012 at 10:12

Might the lack of interest in these elections be mainly down to local party
machines being (a) short of cash; and (b) unwilling to be associated with a
turkey? HMG seems to be in the second camp. Or is it low key govt from a govt
with much to be low key about?
In darkest W Sussex I only received a
leaflet from just one candidate. No other party or candidate publicity
anywhere.
I’m sure I remember a previous wheeze, Mr Straw’s 1998 Crime and
Disorder Act placing a statutory duty on local government to produce and
implement joint plans with police to reduce ‘crime and the fear of crime’ in
their areas. Be interesting to see how that works with party political
PCCs.
Or is it now quietly forgotten?
In the end though I still think
the real problem with police effectiveness lies much higher up, e.g. think of
the blight from Tone’s cafe society licensing reforms.
So just a chance for
a protest vote for me.

Belsay Bugle
November 18, 2012 at 06:53

Sorry there should have been a the before Blair Terror

Belsay Bugle
November 18, 2012 at 06:51

She got in because if tribal voting and apathy. If they put up a red-haired
monkey with a Labour rosette pinned to it and the bruvvers put it round that
they had to get people out to vote for said primate out they would come.

This is the north east of England where more that half the people who do
work are employed directly by the state (DSS, NHS etc etc) and the rest live
off them, with a large rump who have never worked and have no intention of
ever doing so. This was the power base for Blair Terror. Just think how many
of them were elected out of the north east of England.
Baird has been
chosen by the same voters (far fewer of them than voted for Blair’s henchmen)
and there is nothing but cronyism behind it. Let’s hope she disappoints the
voters as much in this post as she has in others she has held and diminishes
the terrible attraction that the Labour Party seems to hold for hundreds of
thousands of useful idiots on Tyneside.

Alan November 18, 2012 at 01:51

It’s a pity the public weren’t allowed to reject the plan. Even the last
Government. for all it’s ills. allowed rejection as an option with their plan
for lots of directly elected mayors,

Frankie November 17, 2012 at 21:48

I think the main factor in all of this farce is the plain fact that the
majority of the population who were eligible to vote chose not to do so and of
those that did place a vote, a reportedly high number deliberately defaced
their ballot paper, which goes to show what those particular persons thought
of the whole process.

If a person has risen to the place of Chief Constable I cannot reasonably
see that they would take a great deal of notice of a barely elected ‘johnny
come lately’, someone (unless they had previously been a police officer) with
no operational experience and, in the case of a person who did not stand as an
Independent, a person with a political axe to grind. Chief Constables are, in
the main of an independent cast of mind. Each force has its own particular way
of doing things, different systems and different equipment. That is the whole
idea. It is, it would seem, a failed experiment that should, in due course,go
the way of the Dodo.

Robb November 18, 2012 at 01:02

Hi Frankie—”a reportedly high number deliberately defaced their ballot
paper”.

Not in the Baird contest: 3,887 rejected out of 182,694 = 2.13%. This is
not outside what often happens. Plus in this election there were other
possible sources of confusion: ‘second preference’, etc.

In some contests I’ve seen slightly higher figures, but still not much
above 3%. Others many have more complete figures.

Frankie November 18, 2012 at 01:43

I stand corrected. And… it seems people genuinely voted for Ms. Baird
QC? I am shocked!

Ted Treen
November 20, 2012 at 13:44

I am afraid I cannot share your faith…

I firmly believe that people voted for a red rosette, which could
have been sported by a retarded orang-outang for all the difference it
would have made.

I STILL (post-Blair, post-Brown, post-Campbell, post-Mandelson inter
alia) hear apparently sentient beings utter phrases like “Labour:- it’s
a workin’ man’s gumming, innit? Yer Tories; well, they only wanna look
after the rich, don’t they?” and engaging said being in a brief
discourse confirms my worst fears that that phrase is the sum total of
their political beliefs, their political affiliation and their political
understanding.

Who said “Turkeys don’t vote for Christmas”?…

David
Davis November 17, 2012 at 20:43

There are too many Police. This is a result of socialism. It is obvious to
any child of six. Under socialism, we will end up with no food, rationing of
anything important, no electricity except when the literati say so, organic
vegetables (in season, which means mostly turnips and some potatoes and
carrots now and then, no oranges or bananas except from Cuba and the
Democratic-People’s Republic of Upper-Jipoopooland and only sometimes (ask any
Czech or Pole or Hungarian over the age of 40).

We need “fewer Police on the Streets”. This can be done immediately by
decriminalizing all drug possession, use, sale and production. The
£150-a-day-habit (I don’t know, for I don’t take drugs) for which the poor
bastards have to murgle, bug, bog and rurbulate, will then become the
£6-a-day-habit, when drugs are all legal, can be made and licensed and sold
legally in supermarkets by Ciba-Geigy, Glaxo-Smith-Kline and the rest of them,
and the State can take £4 in taxation fon every pack or syringe out of that
price.

Then se won’t need to have to vote for police-commissars whose job we don’t
really understand, for the Police will cease to matter, being only concerned
with rounding up real the few real villains left, such as politicians,
burgulators and murderers, and those who want to become “Councillors”.

john warren November 17, 2012 at 20:32

Rather a silly remark Robb, given that Anna is not a reporter, this is not
a newspaper and the only thing that really matters is that the great British
public have spoken. They have no enthusiasm for and do not want PCCs. If we
lived in a true democracy that would be an end to it. The only statistic worth
mentioning is that less than 20% of those eligible to vote thought it a good
idea. Had the voters been given a true cost estimate of what these people will
likely be stuffing into their bank accounts in a few years time, then only 5%
would have thought it a good idea. The truth is, that we did know previously
what the costs for keeping an eye on Mr and Mrs Plod were… but now we’re back
to floundering in the dark. Floundering is a normal situation for the UK of
course. But not a great situation for young people when the nation they are
shackled to is flat broke and in very, very deep debt. UK PLC is going down
the pan and Posh David has absolutely no idea in the world what to do about
it. He’s not a business man you see – just another wealthy tory looking for
some spiffing fun. Do I want you to trust me on that? No, I don’t. One ought
to be obliged to reap that which one sows. It also applies to me. So Vera, do
what you may do – do what you may when trying to stop things from just
vanishing away.

Ted Treen November 17, 2012 at 23:33

“…just another wealthy tory looking for some spiffing fun…”

Cameron is as much a Tory as Blair was a socialist.

A pox and a plague on BOTH their houses!

Robb November 18, 2012 at 00:45

Hi john warren–”The only statistic worth mentioning is that less than 20%
of those eligible to vote thought it a good idea.”

I agree that is the most important figure and that PCCs are a waste of
time. I was one of the 80% who declined or refused to vote. In my case the
voting station was a mere 50 yards from my house.

However, Anna chose to quote many figures, some confusingly–and only
about Baird’s contest. And the thrust of her post was not the idiocy of
PCCs, but criticism of Baird’s record. The low turnout provides no evidence,
pro or con, of Baird’s suitability. It applies to all those ‘elected’. So
there is a logical disconnect there in quoting all those figures. Quite
apart from the confusing presentation.

Calfy November 17, 2012 at 20:27

I happened to notice earlier that she copies her hair from Lynda
Snell.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/journalists/gillian-reynolds/7873459/The-Archers-Is-another-shocking-death-imminent-Radio-review.html

Ed Butt November
17, 2012 at 20:11

I swore I would not vote unless I saw Nadine eat a dingo’s dick. An
ostrich’s arsehole is an inadequate and unacceptable substitute.
So I
stayed in and watched another failure by that girl who used to be in
Coronation Street. I think her name is Gloria Stitz.

Robb November 17, 2012 at 19:45

Somehow amongst all your numbers you fail to report the vital one (from
your link):

Vera Baird: 100,170 votes 56% of valid votes cast.

Whatever your criticisms of Baird (and whatever their validity) this
strikes me as dishonest reporting. Regarding the abysmal turnout: this was
true virtually everywhere and challenges the ‘mandates’ of virtually all the
Police and Crime Commissioners. Not just Baird. You may think the people of
Northumbria were wrong or foolish, or simply bored. But you owe it to them to
report fully how they voted.

Anna
Raccoon November 17, 2012 at
19:59

I did Robb…9.4% of the electorate etc…..

Robb November 18, 2012 at 00:20

Hi Anna– the problem is: 9.4% of the electorate Labour v 45,845
Conservative votes.

The most intuitive comparison is 100,170 v 45,845. Or, if you prefer,
9.2% v 4.2%. Compare like with like.

Either way you can see immediately that Labour got more than twice as
many votes as the Conservatives. I take back ‘dishonest’. Sorry. Confusing
or incompetent may be better!

(Equally, you could have compared Labour against the total vote–in
numbers or percentage. Either would have made clear Labour had a
resounding victory, which your presentation obscured. Mind you, thanks for
the link so I could check the figures out.)

Span
Ows November 17, 2012 at 21:13

Come on Robb, admit it: you posted your comment without reading the
blog-post, didn’t you? You glanced saw the highest number of votes written
in the same sentence as “Conservative” and went into automatic complain
mode; that is the ONLY possible reason for you writing “this strikes me as
dishonest reporting”.

Robb November 18, 2012 at 00:30

Hi Span Ows–Nope. I was puzzled by the long recitation of election
figures followed by series of personal attacks (justified or not) on
Baird.

When I investigated the figures (via the link) I discovered Baird had
won handsomely–which was far from evident from Anna’s post. She did note
9.4% (I make it 9.2%). So I withdrew ‘dishonest’. ‘Confusing or
incompetent’ seems better. See my post above.

Span
Ows November 18, 2012 at
19:44

Good reply. Thanks.

M Barnes November 17, 2012 at 18:30

She blocked you? How fabulous. I’d take it as a compliment.

Anna
Raccoon November 17, 2012 at
18:43

I’m sooo touched she remembered me!

Jonathan Wilson
November 17, 2012 at 14:51

What makes this even more of a farce is that a huge section of things the
police, when, and when not “fighting crime and only crime” do will be out of
the hands of the PCC.
To this add the fact there is to be an oversight
committee that will have the ability to overrule, or guide, decisions on
appointment of the Chief.
They will have no power over the courts and cps,
so will not be able to take large swathes of ner-do-wells of the
streets.
No doubt that now elected they will need a large department to
help them [filter the dross heading their way from the electorate, some of
whom didn’t even vote, the plebs.] with many levels of management at great
expanse (sic) in addition to the oversight committee.
How will they weigh
up the “disgusted of” demanding a crack down on speeding in the area, with the
equally “disgusted of” demanding that the police catch criminals instead of
the poor hard done by motorist.
What if she gets stopped for speeding, with
the advent of the winsor ii proposals “don’t you know who I am” is going to be
a genuine threat now… quick word in the chiefs ear “I’ll sack you” and poof
one less copper on the font line.
What if she, or “disgusted of” demands
zero tolerance of all drugs… bang goes the employment possibilities of
hundreds of posh kids, after all a huge number of Uni. students do seem to
like a tote now and then, so much for daddies “little angel” getting work as a
doctor, barrister, teacher, or future PCC, if you want to have zero tolerance
on drugs, just raid the Uni’s and student accommodation, ching ching lots of
“detections.”
Also the lie about US elected reps… in the US its “local”
sheriffs, the level of which is equivalent to “inspector” or branch manager,
in the business vernacular so tories can understand it… not a huge swathe of
disparate regions or “states” as the US calls them. Even worse is that there
are few “local” stations now, every one is in the big over priced PFI’d to the
hilt building that Gordon, is a moron, mcbroom -and bust- kept of the books
for our grandchildren to pay off like good little plebs.
Biggest cock up in
the history of policing, ever.

Engineer November 17, 2012 at 16:31

Wasn’t the existing Police Authority (which is what PCCs are replacing, I
understand) a ‘large department’ with many levels of management? And was it
not appointed (by whom?) rather than elected, and thus utterly unaccountable
to the public?

I think it’s worth giving this PCC idea a go. Some will be brilliant,
some will be a disaster (so will get replaced at next election time), most
will be average. But at least we, the plebs, have got a chance of an
occasional say in the matter, rather than no say at all as previously.

Jonathan
Wilson November 17, 2012 at 18:57

http://inspectorgadget.wordpress.com/2012/11/16/no-mandate-after-epic-pcc-election-failure/#comment-246246
I
think that sums it up better than myself, there will still be a reduced
‘Police Authority,’ I’m guessing to stop the PCC being a total arse, but
then again if they are what can the Police and Crime Panel’ as its now
called do, there will be hell to play in the press if they overrule the
PCC on matters “Democracy overruled” etc.

So now there will be two groups of bods, the PCP and staff and the PCC
and staff so it will in time be far more costly overall for very little in
return, except one person will take the flack, which is funny as f**k, as
when they realise that all their golden ideas can’t be done as they are
hamstrung by red tape and people outside their perveue and the covernment
has just informed them that their “police” budget is to be shrunk again,
even if their personal budget is not, they will realise that all this was
nothing but a smoke screen to provide a buffer between the covernement and
the plebs; “sorry not HMG fault pleb, see your elected PCC.” oh what a
poisoned chalice, or to use a quote I like “oh what tangled webs we weave
when we practice to deceive.”

JuliaM November
17, 2012 at 14:01

Inspector Gadget is always bemoaning the fact that dog fouling is a hot
topic with all police/community outreach programs, so perhaps now the good
citizens of Vera’s area would like to fill her letterbox with this now?

I meant letters about it, of course…!

Clarissa November 17, 2012 at 14:19

Indeed, one has to be careful about saying such things as @Sir_Olly_C
found out.

Caedmon’s
Cat November 18, 2012 at 15:10

Talking of matters scatological – I came to the same conclusion as
Julia M the other day after these Momentously Important elections were
held in the lovely Kingdom of Northumbria:
http://caedmonscat.blogspot.co.uk/2012/11/police-yourself.html
Business
as usual..

The NoseyMole
November 18, 2012 at 18:48

A number of years ago I was living in a small village in North
Lincolnshire and one of my neighbours had a cocker spaniel who had the
annoying habit of taking a dump on my front lawn. I respectfully asked them
to stop the dog doing this but of course the dog kept to it’s usual habits.
I was somewhat annoyed so I put the doggie doo it in a carrier bag and hung
it on the neighbours door with a note attached saying tomorrow it will be
through the letter box. This seemed to make no differance so the next day I
put the doggie do in a carrier bag and put it through the letter box with a
note attached saying “TOMORROW NO BAG”. Guess what no more doggie doo on my
lawn.

Engineer November 17, 2012 at 13:58

I gather the incoming incumbents must swear an oath, part of which is to
uphold impartiality. I’m sure most will (especially the independents); I
wonder if the political animals will manage this bit, though.

Perhaps, in retrospect, it might have been better for the candidates to all
stand as independents, but state any previous political connections in their
CVs. That may have reduced the feeling that we were being asked to select yet
another politician.