Dodgy dilemma for democracy (From York Press)

Dodgy dilemma for democracy

9:45am Tuesday 31st August 2010 in

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IMAGINE the scene. It’s the hustings for the post of York police chief and the candidates are setting out their crime-fighting stalls. So who is getting the loudest cheers?

Up to the microphone steps a confident-looking fellow in a sharpish suit and, with a knowing wink, picked up on the big screen in St Helen’s Square, tells the waiting throng: “Now, of course, we can’t change the law. But who’s to say whether our new speed cameras will actually be switched on? Who’s to decide whether we’d be better off employing officers to stop motorists for breaking petty, minor regulations, or back on the beat, protecting our property – including our cars? You know the answer,” he says, to wild cheers from a group of rather overweight men waving their driving licences in the air.

As far as I can make out, that’s not how the elections for the new police and crime commissioners are envisaged, but wouldn’t it be fascinating to see what people voted for if they had a serious choice in the realm of local law’n’order?

Would they accept the professional advice on the importance of such things as traffic policing and intelligence-led operations, or would they simply strip out every police department to get officers “back on the beat”, as per the populist cry of the last few decades?

Might there even be self-interested attempts to switch resources to or from certain localities, or in or out of certain areas of human activity, as suggested by our imaginary candidate above?

That’s the trouble with democracy; there’s an awful danger the people might actually start trying to influence what those in authority do, and I suspect that’s why so many public bodies do their level best to avoid it.

The prime example, to my mind, is the NHS, which does such vitally important work in our community with so much of our cash, and yet has proved remarkably resistant to public scrutiny and local opinion down the years – certainly compared with councils, which for all their faults usually have some grasp of the democratic process and accountability.

However, there’s a quandary for those who seek to inject more democratic impulses into our public life. They may try to avoid the danger of populist candidates such as my motorists’ champion taking over vital public services by ensuring the elected officials are, in effect, watchdogs.

Indeed, that appears to be the plan so far as law’n’order is concerned, as the new commissioners won’t exercise authority over day-to-day policing in the American style; we will still have appointed chief constables, who will be responsible to the elected officials.

The trouble with that is as soon as people perceive that these new, democratic roles aren’t about hands-on decision-making an awful lot of the public won’t bother turning out to vote because, let’s face it, it’s going to be awfully difficult to sell an election as exciting if it’s all about how to fine tune rather dry documents with names like Ensuring A Safer Future For Acomb/Fulford/Strensall, etc.

The result of voter apathy is likely to be that the successful candidates will be the nominees of established parties which can persuade sufficient of the faithful to turn out, which would hardly be a fresh start for local politics.

Another possible result would be the election of those representing specific, and potentially narrow, interest groups, again because they could ensure some sort of turnout at the polling booths.

I wonder if, rather than that, we might be better ensuring our new local representatives have a clear role people can understand – which means they need to have some power and be able to do some visible decision-making.

That does pose the risk we might get some dodgy candidates, but at least they would liven up the political process. And that’s exactly what we need if we are to see a rebirth of local democracy and involvement.