THE Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition has outlined plans to impose elected police commissioners in every police force outside London in May 2012.
So what powers will these commissioners have? The right to hire and fire chief constables, but not “operational affairs”.
What a contradiction. How can they claim a chief constable will have operational independence when he or she can be sacked by an elected police commissioner.
So if the commissioner cannot influence operational issues how does the Government think the public will view the role as having any meaningful added value?
In reality, we already have joint boards with a majority of elected councillors doing exactly the role of the proposed police commissioners.
The fundamental difference is that a group of elected councillors is far less likely to have undue influence and prejudices than an elected individual.
We urge former Liberals in the Lib Dems to question what Liberal principles are being undermined in their Conservative-led coalition, which is dangerously politicising our police forces.
The coalition is clearly, like New Labour, obsessed with the value of replacing broad-based committees of elected councillors with an all-powerful individual.
As each week of the coalition unfolds the only option for Liberals must be to leave the Conservative-Lib Dem alliance and rejoin the Liberal Party.
Councillor Steve Radford, Liberal Party NEC, Liverpool
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