WITH the news from around the nation and the world about as relentlessly disturbing and ugly as I can remember, from the escalating Middle Eastern violence to the sex abuse scandals and allegations which have, among other things, rocked one of our great cultural institutions, it seemed almost a relief to find some of our domestic political outlook was merely troubling.

I’m thinking mostly of the concerns created by the extremely low turnout in the police and crime commissioner elections – in the country as a whole, not just in North Yorkshire – a situation in which I played a small part by not voting on principle.

The main conclusion in the initial news reports was that the British public had stuck two fingers up at politicians, both through not voting and by electing a high number of Independents when people could actually be bothered to tick the boxes.

I was intrigued to see the lines taken by pro-commissioner commentators, which included the voting debacle being down to the Government failing to promote the changes to the public, the British people not really being interested in this exciting expansion of “people power” and a dismal lack of interest in local politics.

Well, I think some of this is true, but only partly. Clearly, there is a problem with apathy at elections, and clearly a lot of people didn’t vote for a commissioner because they feared getting a party-political placeman or woman rather than “people power”.

But perhaps the latter factor shouldn’t be exaggerated. Politicians are not the only people suffering a popularity deficit these days; indeed, I saw two polls over the weekend suggesting a serious lack of trust in the BBC as a result of its embarrassment over two sets of abuse allegations. Probably many of those polled also, like me, enjoy watching and listening to BBC output, but think the corporation’s management all too often fails to match its product.

But I think the Beeb may also be suffering from a general disillusion felt by the British people about individuals and institutions in positions of authority and influence in our nation. The targets vary down the years; politicians are usually up there, bankers haven’t been doing too well and it’s really not that long ago that the Royal Family was in the crosshairs. Maybe we got cynical about police and crime commissioners before they even got a chance to let us down.

As for the argument about the British public not being properly prepared for more local decision-making, perhaps our leaders should stop thinking we need educating and learn some lessons themselves.

For example, it might be worth them considering that some of us didn’t vote for police and crime commissioners even though we do believe in the police being accountable to the public and we do believe in better local government.

The reason we didn’t vote was because the brave new world we were presented with struck us as being horribly flawed, particularly because it was hard to see how one person could do the job of representing the public interest across the wide social and geographical divides covered by most police force areas; a problem which will surely be exacerbated by the greater regionalisation of police services, which looks likely in Yorkshire.

Still, the commissioners have now been elected and we must see how they shape up. I just hope the right lessons are learned from the low turnout.

For me this would be either that the system is developed to allow more people to be drawn into the commissioners’ work to ensure local views can be better represented (and not just as a “scrutiny” role), or the commissioners themselves make absolutely sure they properly factor in the views of others rather than simply pursuing their own initiatives.

Then, you never know, we may get some proper people power.