A Dog's Breakfast

For those not familiar with the expression, I'm grateful to the Urban Dictionary for the following explanation:-

"dog's breakfast," which has been British slang for "a complete mess" since at least the 1930s. While no one took the time to write down the exact origin of the phrase, the allusion involved seems to be to a failed culinary effort, perhaps a burned or botched omelet, fit only for consumption by the mouth of last resort, Fido. As a vivid figure of speech meaning something so fouled up as to be utterly useless, "dog's breakfast" can cover anything from a play plagued by collapsing scenery to a space mission ruined by a mathematical error. 


Just as we're all coming to terms with the inevitable approach of the 'festive' season, voting cards are beginning to drop through our letter boxes. Surely there must be some mistake - an election in November? - we never have elections in November - it's far too cold, dark and damp for that, and besides we had elections in May as usual. So what the hell is this all about?

Well, it seems that some young policy wonks in a think tank thought it would be a jolly good idea to make the police more 'accountable' by replacing Police Authorities with directly-elected Crime and Police Commissioners. For some completely unaccountable reason, the Tory Party thought it was a jolly good idea too and so on November 15th we will be electing PCC's who, amongst other things, will have the power to hire and fire Chief Constables. 

Included in a rag bag of other powers, they will be able to draw up a 'policing plan' and be given responsibility for victim services. There are dark mutterings that their powers might be extended to involve other probation functions as well. About the only positive aspect of this whole ridiculous idea in my view is that some candidates might stand on a platform of refusing any notion of large scale privatising of police or probation functions. This is contrary to government policy of course.  

Basically the whole idea has all the hallmarks of a 'back of a fag packet' half-baked political wheeze and my guess is that with only three weeks to go, most of the population remain in blissful ignorance as to who or what they are being asked to vote for in November. The tv adverts that have started appearing won't help either. Scenes of young people committing mindless acts of vandalism just serve to remind us that it's the job of the police to deal with that sort of thing and how exactly will paying £100,000 per annum for an extra bureaucrat help?

21 million leaflets will be dropping through our letter boxes this week as well, hopefully making clear what the whole sad sorry idea is all about, but don't expect any details about the candidates because there won't be any. The government has decided that it's a 'do-it-yourself' task. If you want to know which sad failed politician or wannabe control freak has stumped up £5,000 to stand, you have to look it up for yourself on the internet.   

So, at vast expense in running a special election in November when the turnout will be derisory, voters will be asked to express two preferences for people they've never heard of, to do a job that they don't understand. It makes an absolute mockery of the democratic process. For the first time ever, I'm hearing responsible mature citizens say that they intend to spoil their ballot paper as an act of civil disobedience and in order to register their disdain for this whole miserable political gimmick.

To be honest I think this is a more honourable option than that proposed by Sir Ian Blair the former Metropolitan Police Commissioner who has publicly suggested boycotting the election. No doubt he still feels very sore about being forced into resigning by Boris Johnson the Mayor of London who famously stated that he couldn't work with him. The trouble with boycotting is that it inevitably becomes confused with apathy.     

I'm angry not apathetic about this and for the first time ever I think I'm going to join the small but growing army of 'spoilers'.  It won't have any effect of course, but it just might make us all feel better. At least when the time comes to scrap the whole barmy concept and it becomes another small footnote in the history of failed political ideas, we can say we had no part in it from the beginning, but that we had at least registered our views in some positive way.