Impartiality a must for an elected PCC
I URGE the voters of the Vale of Glamorgan to cast their vote on May 5 for a candidate who has no political axe to grind in the election for a new Police & Crime Comissioner.
As in the previous years the present incumbent Police & Crime Commissioner (Alun Michael – supported by the Labour Party) has saddled the long-suffering residents of South Wales with yet another inflation-busting 4% increase in the money he is looking to claw from the Vale voters.
My contribution to the PCC for this year amounts to £346, having risen year on year for the last four years. With an annual inflation rate of 0.3% Mr Michael is seeking 13 times the UK annual rate of inflation to fund his profligate spending.
Politics, political affiliations or political funding should have no place in selecting the Police and Crime Commissioner.
The holder of this office should be politically impartial and totally independent from coercion from any political party of whatever persuasion.
If the Commissioner is supported by party-political funds there must always be a risk that his political supporters could seek to influence any decision made by the Commissioner.
This is wrong. The office must be seen to be unbiased, impartial and above all completely transparent.
The Independent candidate for the office of PCC (Mr Mike Baker)
undertakes to take control of the spending for this office and rid the department of the freeloaders whom Mr Michael has installed to prop up his political ambitions. Mr Baker will be answerable only to the electorate, no-one else.
Mr Baker has no political ambitions. Why? Because he is not allied to, answerable to, or funded by any political party or trade union. This guarantees his impartiality to discharge the duties of his office fairly and without favour – and at a considerably reduced cost to the Vale of Glamorgan (South Wales) council tax-payers.
I support Mr Baker in his endeavour to be elected to the office of Police and Crime Commissioner. I am apolitical and do not work for Mr Baker. I only seek to assist him in achieving success in this election. Roger Mundy, Penarth, Vale of Glamorgan