[Pierre]

Originally Posted by Graham

So, you have two options:

1) Spend a lot of money introducing an expensive and time consuming process that will attempt to elect someone who will represent the public's views, but will probably be influenced massively by political rhetoric and media spin

2) Stop political meddling in policing which will cost nothing and allow resources to be devoted to what they *should* be concentrated on ie dealing with crime!

I know which I'd go for...!

Fair enough, but I'm willing to give it try.

I give you the examples of the NHS and education as two other prime candidates for the argument that the best option is to keep political hands off.

Politicians are continually fiddling and meddling with these "because that's what the public want", when what all those who are actually in the front lines really want is to be left to get on with the job and stop having to chop and change every couple of years because the government wants to look good and the opposition wants to get elected.

True, I don't think health and certainly education have been managed very well. However, you have certain degree of freedom and choice with Health and Education, you pick and choose hospitals and schools or choose to go private.

You can't do that with the police, you can't decide to use another police force or use a private police force.

Your stuck with them, and if they are not coming up with the goods they're not accountable - to you at least.

Again, you are spending money and using resources to try to fix a problem that could very probably be fixed by just *leaving* well alone.

Probably...Probably not. I'd still like a say.

But that was not what I was talking about. I was talking about *your* claim that young women would feel "safer" because of the resources being put into that case.

However the fact of the matter is that such a perception is false.

True, statistically, it is a false perception. But as I say the same resources would be put into an investigation like that whether there was public mass hysteria or not.

No, that's a Straw Man.

I don't see why. Care to expand?

Pardon me if I doubt that, especially since, from the example above, it seems you're not even sure what *you* are talking about.

I'm very sure thank you.

And, once again, you resort to political style rhetoric and false assumptions, demonstrating that you do not understand what I am talking about.

Firstly, as seen as you don't even know any details about this proposal you're the one making most of the the assumptions.

Secondly, I wish you'd stop trying to propose that I do not understand what your talking about. It's not that intellectual.

I did not, nor would I say "change nothing because the risk is so small".
Yes, checks should be made, yes, sex offenders should not get jobs working or near children, however the sort of panicky knee-jerk "we must be seen to be doing something" political reaction that followed Soham was *not* an efficient nor sensible use of resources and caused all sorts of problems because it was ill thought out.

It may have been Knee-Jerk, but they had to implement some measures immediately.

Again, political rhetoric. Neither a single high-profile case nor emotive arguments should *not* determine policy.

Not emotive, maybe political. Sometimes a single case may change policy, whats wrong with that? If due to this case serious flaws were found in the system.

Fine, I agree, but fix it in a *sensible* way, not with a knee-jerk that causes all sorts of other difficulties.

Sometimes you don't have the time

**Warning** emotive political rhetoric - However unlikely, if another tragedy had occurred due to this system post Soham, they would have been strung up, and rightly so, for failing to act on a known issue.

Rubbish! Many more children are abused by family and friends than by strangers and many more could be protected from abuse and harm by targetting resources into Social Services to *stop* it from happening in the first place.

It is rubbish, you introduced this into the discussion and it has nothing to do with it.

We're talking about the police not Social Services, if they were proposing a Social Services commissioner then fair enough. There are lot of public services were resources are an issue but that is a wider discussion away from this particular issue.

And what about the "duty of care" to all those children being abused "in private"? It seems to be a case of "out of sight, out of mind"...

Again irrelevant, oh and emotional politcal rhetoric as well.

If the abuse was brought to the polices attention and they failed to act, then you'd have a point

As the abuse, as you point out, is in private and behind close doors just what do you expect do be done?? Issue the police with a crystal ball? They can only act on something if its brought to their attention.

What has this to do with the proposal? Going off on meaningless tangents like this does not help.

There is nothing "emotional" about it. It is a simple fact of logic. And that commissioner would most probably be more interested in exploiting emotion than facts, just like many other politicians.

Yes there is, you were asking me to consider all these other people who will be mugged and burgled because resources are being used on a high profile case i.e. Soham.

But you cannot know if this would be the case. For a person who usually likes to be so factual you have no way at all of substantiating your point.

(Note: this is *irony*)

Yes, a poor attempt at it.

What was that line from Douglas Adams (or possibly Arthur C Clarke)? Those who seek public office and are capable of getting themselves elected to it are, ipso facto, entirely *unsuited* to the position...?!

The point is you would *NOT* get the "best person for the job", you'd get whoever could *convince* the public that they were best for the job which is an *entirely* different matter!

I take your point but you don't know that. You might get somebody very good, who does a very good job.

Read through my *what* again? My post? My arguments?

If there are fallacies in my arguments, please, point them out, but don't just use vague implication to suggest they are there without actually backing it up with proof.

I thought I had been pointing out the weaknesses in you argument, and there are plenty of them.

Individually I'm sure, just like politicians Joe and Josephine Public are very nice people who I'd quite like if I met socially.

However "The Public" as a whole has a tendency to "mob mentality" and that benefits nobody.

True, but I'm failed to be convinced that they would be romanced by a failing Police Commissioner if he happened to solve a high profile crime just before polling day.

As I said previously:

"The public in general do not think about these things in a non-emotional manner and putting up an official for election who *will* exploit public emotion to get the job is *not* a good idea."

Well at last a well reasoned paragraph. Fair enough. We'll just have to wait and see. Chances are it'll never happen anyway.
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Pierre, this sort of thing is really not doing your arguments any credit.

In case you really don't understand, what timewarrior and I mean by "leaving well alone" is *getting rid of* large amounts of the paperwork and red tape that successive Governments have dumped on the Police so they can *get on* with the job of dealing with criminals instead of Government "targets".

Well if that's what he meant he didn't articulate it very well. I was just pointing out the conflict in his opening paragraphs.

I agree that red tape and paperwork has to be reduced, whose to say that this proposal will not be the catalyst for that?