Elected Police Chiefs

One of my political hobby horses is that the police are not directly accountable to their paymasters - us. Yes, we elect councillors who sit on a police authority and are supposed to represent our interests, however, they really don't have a say in the police manifesto. In fact most of the councillors elected don't have a manifesto themselves. The LibDems in Hull inform us what they have done, but they really don't give us much detail about what they are going to do next. They tell us that a vote for the Tories is really a vote for Gordon Brown, as it will let Labour in through the back door. This approach works, as it does scare the voters, but it's completely negative.

The police forces around the country have mission statements that really aren't worth the paper they are written on. You never know where the buck stops, as no-one stands on a platform and states what they think are the problems facing their local community and then gives you details of how they plan to solve those problems.

What we need are directly elected police chiefs. We - the voters - can choose between candidates based on their manifesto. The victor will then either flourish or die on the results they generate. Instead of various initiatives guessing what we want based on focus groups and behind closed door meetings; give us the chance to make our feelings known through the ballot box. Doing this would be another victory for democracy.