Douglas Carswell's Blog

Enter elected Police Commissioners - a decade after I first proposed the idea

Ten years ago this week, I was spending my summer break putting the finishing touches to a pamphlet calling for directly elected Police Commissioners.  You can read it here.

It was published in October 2002, on the eve of the Conservative party conference.  I am thrilled that almost exactly a decade after I first proposed the idea, we will see the first Police and Crime Commissioner elections this November.  Three cheers to Nick Herbert for overcoming all the vested interests and making it happen. 

(Amusingly, one of the think tanks that today likes to claim the idea as their own specifically turned down my pamphlet for publication on the grounds that it was a crazy idea - but that is another story).

This is what the Telegraph had to say about the pamphlet at the time:

"....shadow ministers may like to look at a pamphlet being published tomorrow by the think-tank Cchange.

"Direct democracy" by Douglas Carswell argues, in essence, for American-style local democracy: directly elected sheriffs .... public hearings for judicial appointments, the democratisation of quangos. Here is an agenda that is easily communicated, attention-grabbing and popular."

If only we were to implement the rest of that direct democracy agenda ....

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