Since we don’t watch local news on telly and don’t regularly get a local paper, we have had no idea about who is standing or what the job entails. So in my quest to have an informed vote, I duly googled and found a BBC website which gave me the lowdown on the candidates (there is also a national site that will enable you to see candidates).
There is the usual collection of political candidates and three independents, but the person who stood out for me is one of the independents. Derek Webley is a local guy (he’s based just up the road from our parish), who has excellent relevant experience (having already led the West Midlands Police Board – the first independent to do so) and he is a Christian. I don’t want to see policing politicised and a win for Derek Webley would keep policing out of party hands but not deliver it to someone inexperienced and unsuitable. I wonder if people’s dissatisfaction with politicians at the moment will deliver us any independent Police and Crime Commissioners, though? Or are we so stuck with the political system, with its teams of leafleting volunteers, that independents have no chance? I shall be encouraging people to vote, as usual, but I’m a little despairing about the outcome.
The Vicar's Wife 
We only have two candidates: one Conservative and one Labour. So far I am inclined to vote for the Conservative candidate on the basis that he at least acknowledged the email I sent enquiring about domestic violence protocol.
I had no idea who our candidates are. Neighbour brought round a leaflet for Derek Webley. Then I saw your blog. Good enough for me. Non political is a good thing. A very good thing.
Shame you don’t get a local paper on a regular basis! I believe there’s a double page spread on the candidates in your area in tomorrow’s Express & Star.
Hi Tim! If I do buy a local paper, you’ll be pleased to hear that it’s always the Express & Star. But we are drowning in paper already in the Vicarage, so I generally tend to read online.
Really pleased to hear that Vicar’s Wife!
Incidentally when I was a vicar’s son (which technically, of course, I still am) we used to mulch all our newsprint and then shape them into bricks which were a handy and very cheap replacement for logs/coal.
From experience I know that big vicarages are awfully difficult to keep even moderately warm. So by buying extra numbers of papers you could be killing two birds with one stone!
Alas, these days there is so much other paperwork around that we already recycle some rather than lighting our fires with it. The brick things are rather unsatisfactory, in my experience.