I DIDN’T vote yesterday. For the first election in more than 30 years, I didn’t use my ballot.

I woke up to a message from the BBC that it was “Super Thursday”, but in my nick of the North Yorkshire woods, there was only a Police and Crime Commissioner to vote for, and I had known for days that, even though I am something of a political anorak, this wasn't particularly super.

Indeed, I’m anorak enough to know that I’m not the only one in this predicament. When the first PCC elections were held in November 2012, in the Northumbria force area the turn-out was 16.8 per cent; in Cleveland and Durham it was 14.7 per cent and in North Yorkshire it was only 14.2 per cent – and I was one of those 14.2 per cent.

But in 2016, I joined the majority. In my middle class comfort, I’ve had no personal engagement with the police in the last four years – my shed hasn’t been broken into since 2010, I haven’t been caught speeding, and I have never seen a bobby on my street.

None of the candidates has engaged with me. Not a leaflet. Not a call.

The Northern Echo helpfully carried little pen portraits of those chasing my vote, but they all used different words to say the same thing. At least at a general election you know where you stand – one lot wants to cut public spending and taxes, the other lot wants more public services. Even at a local election, one lot will be trying to shut the local library, the other lot will be pledging to keep it open.

But none of the PCC candidates was advocating an increase in the rate of crime or for more old people to be beaten up in their homes. Instead they were philosophically the same: they all wanted more police officers and they all wanted less crime.

Unable to choose, I thought about casting my vote along party political lines. But control of my local police force should not be dependent upon whether I think Jeremy Corbyn has done enough to tackle anti-Semitism in the Labour Party, or whether I think David Cameron’s U-turn on child refugees has embarrassed the Conservative Party. The safety of my bike in its shed will not be enhanced by withdrawing from the EU.

In Durham, the Labour Party has put commendable effort into getting its voters to support its candidate, but the police should be above and beyond party politics.

They do need to be held to account, but I elect councillors and MPs, who choose a government and a Home Secretary, to do that. I’ll happily elect a mayor if that’ll help, but I couldn’t even bring myself to vote for an Independent PCC candidate because just taking part would have indicated my support for this pointless piece of democracy.

So I don’t vote, and I spent the day feeling annoyed about not doing so.

LAST week I made a mistake. I said that because brown bears were barmy about edible wild garlic, the pungent plant which comes from the onion-related allium family, it was known by the nickname “bear’s leak”.

I meant “leek”, and I am grateful to all who pointed this out.

However, if you do decide to eat bear’s leek after a bear’s leaked upon it, I suggest you wash it first.