This week you may have spotted Roger Hirst, the Police, Fire and Crime Commissioner (PFCC) for Essex, doubling down on his police force's decision to investigate the journalist Allison Pearson.
To summarise the disturbing saga, two officers visited Pearson’s home on Remembrance Sunday and invited her for an interview over “an incident or offence of potentially inciting racial hatred online”. She is being investigated under Section 19 of the Public Order Act 1986 for a deleted social media post allegedly “likely or intended to cause racial hatred”.
Appearing on LBC, Hirst was defiant and appeared to smirk as he relayed the reasons why Pearson deserved such a ghastly interrogation. He seemed to think critics of Essex Police were demanding special treatment for Pearson – emphasising to listeners “it is my job to make sure that the police act even-handedly and we will have no two-tier policing in Essex” – rather than simply shocked by chilling authoritarianism. “We can’t go around ignoring crimes just because it’s politically sensitive,” he added.
Hirst gave his full thoughts in a ConservativeHome article titled 'Don’t blame Essex Police for upholding the law – even if the alleged perpetrator is a powerful journalist', where he wrote:
Without free speech, our democracy is in peril. But the same goes for the rule of law. Core to my role as the Police, Fire and Crime Commissioner for Essex is ensuring that the police exercise their powers effectively and without fear or favour. That means being able to
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Sack him because his Police “friends” are useless politically motivated idiots. His job is to make sure the Police work for the Public. Total failure!
Charlotte Gill should be arrested for saying such hurty things about police commissioners! How dare she have such thoughts without permission.
Is there a choice for taxpayers?
They started by holding elections for these posts separately but as turnout was abysmal as nobody wanted them they were made part of the local elections. I have always spoiled my ballot in response.
When the concept of a directly elected person who was answerable to the public for the performance of the local police force, I liked the idea. The ability for people to say that the police are wasting their time in one area and should focus it elsewhere and a candidate standing up and saying I will make sure that happens was appealing, removing the control of central Government or an unnamed, unaccountable local committee. Sadly, it seems most if not all of the people elected have just been captured by their forces and are now another level of management spouting the never criticise the police mantra rather than ensuring that the police work for the majority of the local population.
“…when we next get a Right-wing Government.” s/when we next/if ever we/ – Reform is an appendage of Nigel Farage which will last until he gets tired of it. All it does is split the Right-wing vote, letting the Left in. Disagree if you can.
Where’s the rest of the “Right Wing Vote” that Reform is supposedly splitting then?
Surely you are not so naive as to mean the Lib/Lab/Con Uniparty .
Sounds like he’d be ideal in some small administrative role in the NHS
Yes. Carrying a brush as an “Infection Prevention Officer.”
I believe it was 2014 when Police Commissioners replaced the local authority nominated police committees. At the time I was a member of UKIP and I was its candidate for Essex. With limited resources I recall getting a good share of the vote – 14 percent I think.
UKIP was against the PCC concept and instead we wanted elected police committees (aka watch committees) or at least a good proportion. We foresaw and said so that PCC would become an expensive and democracy-free role.
The Tories won the Esex PCC election back then. Their candidate was a recently retired MI5 officer who went on toi head the Home Office inspired association for PCCs. No surprises there! Unfortunately the Home Office has effectively centralised the control of police forces by using the usual method of the elites and claimed the chnage was for more democracy. More = Less, as usual.
Together with the various police quangos there is almost a national police force and its priorities are thos eof the woke elites not the public. It is a shame Reform had not been re-launched before the elections in May as I think we would have picked up some of them. Maybe… Read more »
It was 2012 I stood
https://cbccrmdata.blob.core.windows.net/noteattachment/CBC%20-%20Elections%20-%20Elections%20Archive%20-%202012%20-%20Police%20and%20Crime%20Commissioner%20for%20Essex%20-15%20November.pdf
Linda Belgrove was a former Police Commitee member while Michael Twaites was a retired police officer. I did not think either would bring a sufficiently independent approach although I thought Michael was committed to doing the role.
Because Blair and his Heir, Cameron, thought it would be a good idea to politicise the police.
Common Purpose did the rest.
I hope Reform pledges to scrap the Police and Crime Kommissars and the Woke College of Policing. It should be compulsory for Chief Constables to rise up through the ranks.
Hear, hear!
And well done for remembering the Evil Marxist Common Purpose Subversives ever lurking in the background, so courageously exposed by retired Royal Navy officer Brian Gerrish of the UK Column.
To be fair the Hampshire and Isle of Wight PCC (Donna Jones) is good. More police on the beat, good crime prevention initiatives for the youth and not afraid to speak truth to power.
She got into hot water this summer by saying many of the (Southport) protestors had concerns about the direction of the country. The lefties didn’t like that at all.
Why the F for Fire in PFCC? Is an A for Ambulance missing? Bureaucracy self-replicating.
Think about it – this is not a question of a powerful journalist perpetrating some shadowy crime in secret (that’s the BBC’s speciality). It’s about a <150 word statement on a completely public platform which no doubt many thousands read and saw nothing even disturbing, let alone criminal, at the time.
Once the tweet is identified, the whole world has all the evidence the police could ever “investigate” – other, I suppose, than exploring Allison’s basement for the nuclear bomb she’s intending to drop on Pakistan.
I am sure the voting figures would have been much higher if the question was not which one to select but whether to select one at all.
Low turnouts are often considered to indicate a complacent public, which is to some extent the case when it doesn’t indicate a disillusioned public. But when the “democratic” process involves national elections, local elections, public officers (like police commissioners), EU elections (pre-Brexit) and so on and on, it guarantees that only full-time activists without lives to live will vote. That is probably the whole intention in a pseudo-democracy.
I learned that as a student, when although the Students Union was of no interest, we were co-opted into it automatically so that the leftist leaders could generate national headlines like “Cambridge Students condemn Eysenck as Racist” (meaning that some communist apparachik sent out a press release on headed notepaper).
Those of us against the idea at the start said they would build themselves expensive empires. And “lo it has come to pass.”
Exactly.
This is why the Conservative party lost the election.
“Conservative” politicians like this guy are not in any discernible way different from their Labour equivalents.
Sadly I think that a lot of people who voted Tory at the last election (six million odd) are do-gooding type wets.
He will be operating to Kneel’s commands.
It’s a bit like Manchester. Anybody who lives in the North West knows that Greater Manchester Police is owned by Gauleiter Andy Burnham which is why GMP is in and out of Special Measures like Lord Ali and …err, well you know.
…..or Lib Dem, or even Greens for that matter. They are the Uniparty.
people Like this man won’t care, they are on favorable final salary pensions and anything that accelerates early retirement, possibly combined with enhanced pension service years for loss of office will be most welcome. They can then come back as consultants.
Why are we paying public officials to commission crimes?