Re~Stirred Forum

Derogatory, I must now go and lie down in my darkened room, I had been positive about PCCs but as I feel a Labour Candidate will win in November I now know it will either be Bob Jones, 25 years of nothing revolutionary in policing or Yvonne Mosquito, where I think many officers will be happy to have been subject to A19.

Mike Olley, might have at least brought a degree of freshness and new ideas to policing and would I am sure have been respected by and worked well with senior police officers to give us the policing we need and deserve.

Councillor Ernie Hendricks is letting the people of Birmingham down in my opinion, by not standing for the LIB DEM nomination.

What candidates from the other parties are putting their hats in the ring? Is having a commissioner who previously served on the Police Authority good in terms of getting experience in the role, or bad? Is there a need for a new broom to oversee West Midlands Police? And who would be your pick for the Commissioner?

Heard cllr ayoub khan is looking to stand for the liberal democrats....as a independent candidate I would put forward our very own Gerry..he would soon shake up west mids police!

Gerry, if I knew you to talk to, I should talk to you about Mike Olley and cars and Gerry Pountney. But as I don't, I'll just have to say that the first thing I'll look for in a police commissioner is probity, and Bob Jones passes that test pretty well.

How long will we have PCCs for before someone says they are too political and what we need is some form of Police Authority?

Bring back the Watch Committee.

Andy Foster, I can only go on what I have seen, performance wise of Cllr. Bob Jones and it did not impress me, even to the point of him only starting to wear a suit and tie to Authority meetings after he put his hat in the ring.

I will have to go with Cllr. Yvonne Mosquito as she will add a degree of excitement to PCC meetings, if the public are allowed to attend them and the Journalists will no doubt get some great copy during her term of office.

Why Labour produced a short list of two, or rather the elitist commanders and controllers of that party, did so I do not understand.

It is a traditional Labour fix.

As is intended if we have a directly elected Mayor.

John Hemming on this occasion I might just have to agree with you.

My throat is worse for wear having spent over two hours with your colleagues last night, the only positive is while they were with me they were not door knocking or delivering leaflets, but don't tell KINGB.

I'll be impressed by Bob wearing a suite - was it a three piece like this?

LIKW, good to see someone is awake and reading my contributions, I have an uncontrollable auto correct facility and word prediction software that often changes the words, without me knowing and I am sure it sometimes tends to alter my actual contribution to make it look as if I am inconsistent with my views and opinions.

like putting the letters "in" in front of the word "consistent" on the second line above?

Very good John.

Oh to be an intellectual like some of these geezers that do here post and with right fortitude an education, well deserving to me give.

If only me brain were the size of some politician's guts, I might be able to understand where my errors in life do have a resting place.

The good news is that Labour at full cabinet yesterday gave their consent to the redevelopment of the old Bierton Road School, in South Yardley to become a community centre and a 420 place primary school.

Labour activists in the Yardley Constituency have been working hard in the community to get new facilities and this must be seen as a victory for Labour and residents working together to get things done in that ward.

To a proposal which was prepared by the Coalition and voted through by the coalition which had not been mentioned previously by Labour.

John Hemming are you saying that Labour are opposing this development, I attended the cabinet meeting and my impression was that Labour supported, what I must inform you local Labour Activists in South Yardley have been working for.

A month ago I visited the site with the next Labour Councillor for the area and he has been very active in wanting this site to come back into community and council use.

I have been very dissapointed that the issue of this site has not been raised at Yardley Constituency meetings.

You must remember that whatever we both think about Labour it will be their responsibility to carry out the development in about 3 weeks time.

I am sure post May 3rd the Labour controlled ward will be instrumental in this development and their councillors keen to have you on board in doing what is best for the local community around Bierton Road.

It is now known that there is no appeal process for Labour's selection of candidates for the short listed PCC, so Mike Olley is no longer a Labour Contender, but he still could be an independent one if he so wishes.

Can anyone tell me if Councillor Yvonne Mosquito will have to quit as a councillor, if she is selected mid May by the Labour party membership to be their PCC candidate?

If she has to resign as a councillor if elected PCC, who will be the potential candidates for the vacancy in Nechells Ward, which will be an all female selection?

Looking for an update on the position for possible candidates I checked C4 News website's for reporting by Michael Crick and found very little. It did mention a website TopOfTheCops, which is run by a prospective Labour PCC candidate, which has a lot more and explains itself:

Link:http://topofthecops.com/

There is a section on the West Midlands:http://topofthecops.com/in-your-area/west-midlands/ this has a working link to Bob Jones statement (Labour) and Joe Tildesley (Conservative) has one too here:http://topofthecops.com/2012/04/24/candidate-statement-of-joe-tildesley/

Readers will be aware that the West Midlands Labour Party currently have two candidates for PCC and Joe Tildesley has yet to be accepted as the Conservative Party candidate. Apparently they are looking for a younger candidate, although nationally very few have applied.

Other possible local PCC candidates have not provided a statement to the website.

Below text should have been in the previous post, but was 'rejected'.

The website has a review of the national scene on candidate selection, notably the Labour Party's twists and turns:http://topofthecops.com/2012/04/17/how-not-to-shortlist-for-police-and-crime-commissioner-candidates/

The reason behind the shortlist of two for the Labour Party candidate for police commissioner is that party nationally is concerned that everyone on the shortlist has absolute probity. I'm normally a fan of long lists, but I understand the reasoning in this case.

Is it so much more trouble to check the backgrounds of three or four people than two?

I personally think Mike Olley is someone with probity. I have not heard of anything to the contrary. I have heard lots of things about lots of people. He was pushed out of being MP for Erdington (in favour of Sion Simon) and now has been pushed off the shortlist for PCC (a post I don't think has much of an executive function - being more of a defence of the status quo). However, he was one of the few Labour councillors who actually tried to make the city council work properly when Labour were in power (against the then complacency of many of the senior officers some of whom were really only interested in empire building).

John, we have not met for some years and the last time we were in the same room you didn't recognise me. Increasing age and decrepitude no doubt (mine not yours). But this gives us a topic of conversation which will not end up in a political argument. To mark the Dickens anniversary I can tell you a picaresque story of second hand car deals and pawnbrokers.

Incidentally the local candidate who was passed over in favour of Sion Simon was Ray Woods of Erdington Labour Party. I can't say I liked that. One thing I learned slowly in my time on the council was how little we all know of what goes on in other parties.

I agree with John Hemming, but would add, in my opinion, that with Labour it is often not what you know but who you know and maybe if the Labour Command Elite like you.

I didn't think Mike got on the short list. (again).

The ploy of the 2010 general election short list was to be expected as well.

I refer the Hon. Gentleman to my previous answer.

I sometimes watch the BBC's 'Sunday Politics', with it's weak regional politics segment and was astounded to hear three regional MP's comments. First Solihull's Lorely Burt (Liberal) 'Absolutely wouldn't back it'; Adrian Bailey, Labour MP for West Bromwich West 'Irrelevant, unwanted and potentially will take away resources from fighting crime' and James Morris, Conservative MP for Halesowen who called for mayors to control policing - which is not on the current agenda.

The segment is around the 48th minute:http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b01gk6j5/Sunday_Politics_West_Midlands_29_04_2012/

Clearly these MPs are "not on message", let alone were they calling for voters to decide in November 2012. (Not that I advocate being "on message").

Ayoub Khan is now, conveniently, unincumbered with councillor issues to dive into this post, but then there are so many ex lib dem councillors now, that competition may be hard for their party nomination.

An interesting item which indicates some of the issues local government have with the prospective PCC:

Link:http://www.ippr.org/events/54/9058/who-polices-the-commissioners-making-police-and-crime-commissioners-work-for-your-place



Alas not a public event and not to overlook it is sponsored by Capita.

with there going to be such a low dire turnout can we just cancel this until at least May ??

In a remarkable "own goal"

When most forces are offering local briefings and very few party candidates are confirmed, so able to claim expenses to such a soiree it is not surprising the offer wasn't greeted with acclaim.

Link:http://topofthecops.com/2012/05/06/the-first-one-isnt-always-free/

to be fair to Adrian Labour made it clear we were always against and I wished we could have not stood candidates but the reality is that we should run candidates.

Police Commissoners will be a disaster over time and we all know that there is NO public clamour for even more unwarranted and not needed elections.