Although the party has been warming to fighting the Police and Crime Commissioner elections, estimates as to how many Liberal Democrat candidates there will be in the November contests vary hugely.
So here’s a first attempt from me to track the answer comprehensively, based primarily on the adverts which have so far appeared inviting people to apply for the selection in particular contests. As a result, the list will (so far) miss out some areas where the party has 100% decided to contest the election but an advert has not yet appeared. If you know of any others where the firm decision has been made, by all means let me know and I’ll update the list accordingly.
Avon & Somerset Constabulary – yes
Bedfordshire Police – yes
Cambridgeshire and Peterborough Constabulary – yes
Cheshire Constabulary – yes
Cleveland Police – no
Cumbria Constabulary – yes
Derbyshire Constabulary
Devon and Cornwall Constabulary – yes
Dorset Police – yes
Durham Constabulary
Dyfed-Powys Police
Essex Police – yes
Gloucestershire Constabulary – yes
Greater Manchester Police – yes
Gwent Police
Hampshire Constabulary – yes
Hertfordshire Constabulary – yes
Humberside Police – yes
Kent Police
Lancashire Constabulary – yes
Leicestershire Constabulary – no
Lincolnshire Police
Merseyside Police – yes
Norfolk Constabulary – yes
North Wales Police
North Yorkshire
Northamptonshire Police – yes
Northumbria Police – yes
Nottinghamshire Police – no
South Wales Police
South Yorkshire Police – yes
Staffordshire Police – no
Suffolk Constabulary – no
Surrey Police – yes
Sussex Police – yes
Thames Valley Police – yes
Warwickshire Police – no
West Mercia Police – no
West Midlands Police – yes
West Yorkshire Police – yes
Wiltshire Constabulary
Total ‘yes’ (updated with changes to original list): 24.
* Mark Pack is Party President and is the editor of Liberal Democrat Newswire.
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17 Comments
Interesting that after opposing the policy, Lib Dems are suddenly embracing it.
Another U-turn that will come back and bite us?
We opposed elected Mayors but still (usually) stood in those elections
pretty sure kent aren’t fielding a candidate.
Robin Gonard is talking bollocks.
Just because we don’t support the policy of elected PCCs doesn’t mean we should not fight the elections. We have a clear, different and attractive set of policies on crime and punishment and to sit back and let these elections be contested with none of our policies on display woudl be the height of folly.
This is not embracing the policy. What will come back and bite us is NOT STANDING. This will be trotted out by the other parties in every election from here to 2015.
I understand that Hertfordshire are intending to run a candidate. In Norfolk, it is hoped that members will be balloted very shortly.
@Robin Labour also oppose the PCC elections yet are standing a full slate for candidates, I guess for the same reasons @Mickft suggests. The idea that only Tories should stand because they are the only party in the UK to fully support the elections and all parties who don’t support the elections should not stand makes a mockery of Democracy.
The SNP and UKIP both stand for elections to parliaments that they don’t believe they should be able to stand for. They’d be mad not to. Lib Dems refusing to stand for PCC elections would just reduce the already slim chances of getting a good PCC in post.
There are only two winnable seats for the Lib Dems, Avon & Somerset and Dyfed Powys. Not standing in Dyfed Powys shows we are in decline.
UKIP currently has more canddiates that us!
Staffordshire, West Mercia and Warwickshire all NO
Who is the candidate for Lancashire?
Cleveland Police area- definitely no Lib Dem candidate. Lots of reasons including practical and ideological. So far on the doorsteps we’ve had a very positive response to that decision, with people very worried about political interference in the police force and not understanding the point of the change. Candidates so far announced are a Labour councillor who was on the Police Authority & is well known in his borough, a Tory councillor who spent a brief period as leader of one of the 4 unitaries in the area so is well known there, an ex-policeman who has a long-running history of warfare with Cleveland Police and is standing as an independent. Unless a good, strong, candidate pops up from somewhere I predict a very low turnout indeed. Of course Labour could try to turn it into a referendum on the coalition in which case who knows what the turnout will be?
It would indeed be folly not to field candidates, once people get out of the habit of seeing a LIB DEM on the ballot paper who knows what they will vote, not just on this occasion but in future!
The only area in the East Midlands that decided to field a candidate was Northamptonshire. That makes Lincolnshire, Leicestershire and Derbyshire all NO.
@Trevor Stables
“It would indeed be folly not to field candidates, once people get out of the habit of seeing a LIB DEM on the ballot paper who knows what they will vote, not just on this occasion but in future!”
I’m sorry but I really don’t understand that approach, Trevor.
Could you or someone explain why it is so much better to put up a candidate who will get (say) 10% of the vote on a (say) 18% turnout in the election for a post which a lot of people don’t want. If there is to be an elected PCC then most people appear to think it should not be a party politician (e.g. “Less than 1 in 10 think a politician would make the best PCC” June 2012 poll for Policy Exchange – see http://www.policyexchange.org.uk/component/zoo/item/new-poll-on-police-commissioners )
Clearly if we were heading for 10% of the vote on an 18% turnout then the majority of our usual voters won’t be voting anyway.
I think that Maureen Rigg is spot on in her comments: “definitely no Lib Dem candidate (in Cleveland) …. So far on the doorsteps we’ve had a very positive response to that decision, with people very worried about political interference in the police force and not understanding the point of the change.”
Not standing candidates in these elections (unless an area is too weak to do so) is a disgrace. It is just handing the field to our opponents. We are going back to the 1950s and 1960s when standing in elections was an optional extra for the Liberal Party. It tells people that we have nothing to say and no-one worth standing. The Police Commissioners will exist whether we like it or not (and I do not – allowing them to go forward under the coalition was also a disgrace).
Lancashire: a member ballot is taking place at the moment to choose the candidate (Afzal Anwar v RON) RON? More idiocy.
Tony Greaves (yes I sit in the House of Lords although I consider that an appointed undemocratic House is a disgrace to the UK).
@Tony Greaves:
“Lancashire: a member ballot is taking place at the moment to choose the candidate (Afzal Anwar v RON) RON? More idiocy.”
There are those who would insist upon spending a lot of Lib Dem hard-earned money on such a process. We have so much money, you see, that we have to get rid of it in such a manner.
I disagree with Tony on the other point, however. We can pick and choose which elections we stand in. The public are far more savvy than they used to be and do not treat all elections alike or anything near it. Since the vast majority of people who have been polled would prefer the police to be kept out of the hands of politicians, why don’t we make that a positive campaigning tool and show them that the Lib Dems are on the side of the 80 per cent of voters who will boycott these particular elections?
Whoops, I forgot, Lib Dems are now on the side of alienating the public into thinking we’re just like the other money-grabbing so-and-sos who are contesting these elections, as well as pouring money into projects about which the public cares little or nothing. 🙁
Far more yesses than I was expecting. Must say I’m disappointed. That’s an awful lot of money to be throwing away on deposits…