a 'laughing stock'

According to the Government, Police and crime commissioners have the job of ‘bringing communities closer to the police, building confidence in the system and restoring trust’, but in reality it has just brought the independent Police Forces of the UK into political control.

They were brought in across England and Wales in November 2012 by the Conservatives to set budgets and decide on strategies while also holding chief constables to account.

But lack of enthusiasm for the reform meant the polls were held with little publicity, and a record low 15 per cent of voters turned out, that has resulted in some very unsatisfactory appointments

At the time of the election for Kent Crime Commissioner the turnout was so low for the poll, that Mrs Ann Barnes was elected with a total of 114,137votes from a registered electorate of 1,281,968.

Most people were uninterested, and were of a mind that this whole process was a waste of money, but Cameron, once again pressed ahead with his pet plan, and once again showed total disregard of the wishes of the people whom he was elected to represent.

Last night police officers branded the Kent Crime Commissioner a 'laughing stock' following an 'embarrassing' Channel 4 documentary about her job.

Viewers reacted with fury to last night's Meet The Police Commissioner programme in which Ann Barnes, elected crime chief for Kent, struggled to explain her £85,000-a-year taxpayer-funded role.

The documentary showed Mrs Barnes travelling in a van she dubs 'Ann Force 1', having difficulty explaining an approach to policing priorities.

In the sequence, Mrs Barnes is shown in front of a flipchart on which is a hand-drawn diagram of concentric circles. Mrs Barnes explains that "These are all the various things, different kinds of policing, OK, in Kent," waving a hand in a circular motion around the circles. "And these are the different kinds of policing priorities, in terms of priority."

When asked by the interviewer What would be a crime on the outside of the diagram, she replies “Oh God, no idea, I can't tell you actually, I mean I wasn't thinking I was going to talk about the onion as we call it. Erm, oh, I don't know really”

When further questioned about her role as Police Commissioner  she says, “Well, it's a strange job this, it's a strange role, there's actually no job description at all."

Looking at the expressions on the faces of senior police officers sat in meetings being chaired by this woman was embarrasing. Who thought putting a retired teacher with zero experience in policing, in charge of policing resources and budgets was a good idea? She spoke to her Chief a Constable as though he was a naughty little child.

Mrs Barnes was elected as the first PCC in Kent in November 2012 despite previously branding the Government's plan to increase police accountability a 'wilful waste of money'.

She became the most high-profile of the country’s 41 crime tsars a year ago when The Mail on Sunday revealed her £15,000 youth commissioner, Paris Brown, 17, had posted a series of highly offensive comments online.

Mrs Barnes is an 'embarrassment' to Kent Police, and should have stuck to teaching or was that beyond her too?

The face of a haunted leader 

Poor old Clegg looking worn out and red eyed. So what! He has brought this on himself with his self serving arrogance and "I know best" attitude.
Pressure is on Nick Clegg to quit as Lib Dem leader after the party’s wipeout in the European elections.

Following a catastrophic night, which cost him all but one of his MEPs, he was forced to admit he had lost the argument over Europe.

In an emotional interview, the Deputy Prime Minister said being beaten into fifth place by the Greens had been ‘gutting and heartbreaking’

As the leader of a political party he should get back to some fundamentals.

As individuals we cannot all turn up in the house of commons to argue our case. There are not enough chairs for a start. So we choose a representative to present our case for us. If enough people have the same view then laws are passed and society changes. This is called representative government. Laws come from the people up, not from the government down (most of europe is the latter).

Nick you forgot this. Your job is to represent the peoples' wishes not to reject them or espouse your ideas. The people do not wish to be in a european superstate so you must stop harping on about your beliefs.

They are irrelevant. Reflect the views of the people.
As someone once said. "Think not of what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country" I think all the LibLabCon politicians need to think on that one.

It's time for politicians to listen

After local elections in the UK David Cameron admits his party must deliver some "answers" after UKIP's election "earthquake" shakes politics.

The Prime Minister conceded his party had to start delivering on immigration and welfare reform, and said the public had become "frustrated" with the status quo. There is no group of people more frustrated than those expats living in Europe who are denied the vote.

It is time that politicians in the UK started listening to the people instead of forcing through their doctrine policies.

Ed Miliband defended the party's campaign and said “people were turning to UKIP to express their discontent with the way the country is run”. “ people feeling that the country just does not work for them and so what you are seeing in some parts of the country is people turning to UKIP as an expression of that discontent and that desire for change."

Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg admitted the party had had a bad night but said: "Actually I think in the areas where we have MPs where we have good organisation on the ground ... we are actually doing well."

THEY STILL DO NOT UNDERSTAND. The electorate want politicians working for them.

UK politicians are looked upon as pariahs. They have lied continuously, they have flouted their positions and ignored the wishes of the electorate, and finally they were caught with their hands in the till. No wonder Brits are disenchanted with British politics,

And that explains the rise and rise of Nigel Farage and his anti EU party. Or is it just in the UK that voters are disenchanted with Europe

A recent poll is the latest evidence that voters in France and across the continent perceive the EU as remote and unaccountable, which is expected to boost support for far-right, anti-EU parties in countries such as France, Britain, the Netherlands and Hungary.

A mere 18 percent of the 1,048 people questioned late last month said they were “confident” about the future of the European Union, with just 2 percent claiming to be “enthusiastic”.

 Only 51 percent of French still want their country to belong to the 28-nation bloc. That was down from 67 percent a decade ago, according to the CSA survey for BFMTV news channel.

The CSA poll showed that voters - 70 percent of them - are disillusioned with the European Union because of its failure to help stem rising unemployment in France, which has a record 3.3 million people out of work.

Sixty-three percent of those surveyed said they were disappointed with the EU because of the decline of social protection, while 60 percent cited growing numbers of immigrants as another reason for falling out of love with the European project masterminded by France and Germany.

France’s far-right Front National, led by Marine Le Pen, is tipped to spearhead a surge by populist parties across Europe in the vote for the EU's only directly elected body.

Polls show that the anti-immigrant French party is in pole position alongside the mainstream centre-right UMP, with President François Hollande's ruling Socialists trailing in third place. 

This looks all too familiar in the UK.

In the same way that UKIP are frightening the mainstream party’s in the UK, Marine Le Pen’s far-right National Front party is poised to win a double-digit percentage of France’s 74 seats in the 751-member Parliament.

Do expats care? Of course they do

Being disenfranchised back home has left expats starving to participate in the democratic process, but for British expats in France the stakes are also uniquely personal.  Apart from the local elections, the EU elections are the only election some expats are allowed to vote in.

I'm British, I live outside the UK and I've done so for more than 15 years. Accordingly, the British government very unfairly denies me, and people like me, the right to vote in parliamentary elections,

Expats are free to live and work in France as long as they like without any special authorization from the government, and for that they are denied the vote.

Most of those same expats however are obliged to pay their taxes to the UK government. One without the other is WRONG!