I Fucked Your Mum!

That’s why we need to sound the alarm and get our friends and family to the polling stations armed with the facts. Over the last few days, 38 Degrees members have emailed all the candidates to find out who supports privatisation. You can see what your candidates say about privatisation at the bottom of this email.

Please forward this email to your friends and family to get them to go and vote.

Hardly anyone knows that these elections are even happening – experts reckon less than one in five people could vote. That means there’s a huge danger that we could end up with commissioners that few people even voted for privatising our police forces.

Voting is easy - you just go along to your polling station, probably the same place as you would vote in a general election. Polling stations are open from 7am until 10pm so it’s easy to go before or after work and you don’t even need to bring your polling card with you.

Please forward this email to your family and friends, and remind them to vote in the police elections tomorrow, or share a reminder to vote on Facebook by clicking this link:
https://secure.38degrees.org.uk/police-election-fb

Thanks for being involved,

James, David, Hannah and the 38 Degrees team

Here’s what the West Mercia candidates said to 38 Degrees members about privatisation. Not all of them have given a clear answer about privatisation, some have made a distinction between “back office” and “frontline” privatisation. Others have said they won’t privatise but may consider outsourcing – having a private company take over some parts of the work that police forces do.

Dr Simon Murphy (Labour):
I cannot promise not to privatise any West Merica police services. However my default position will be to consider privatisation of a service as the last resort. I can guarantee that under no circumstances will I privatise core policing functions – these include neighbourhood policing, investigation and response to incidents, supporting victims, forensics and 999 call answering and response. The advantages of privatisation are often over-sold. In addition there are numerous examples of contracts that fail to deliver the savings and service improvements that were promised

All companies that meet the required criteria to submit a tender for service provision will be considered objectively in line with procurement rules and regulations. The payment of the Living Wage by contractors retained by West Mercia is an objective I will seek to deliver over my term in office.

If I am elected I will institute a review of all existing West Mercia contracts with private sector companies. This will be conducted with a view to generating additional benefits and/or financial savings for the force.

Adrian Blackshaw (Conservatives):
Thank you for your email regarding privatisation of the police.

I am very happy to repeat the unequivocally undertaking I have previously given to the Police Federation and repeated at a number of public meetings that I have no intention of outsourcing any aspects of front-line policing services should I be elected as Police & Crime Commissioner for West Mercia on 15th November.

I have no business interests in G4S or any similar business.

Bill Longmore (Independent):
At the moment I have no specific plans for privatisation of police functions, and if elected I will enter the post with an open mind.

I would have to hear a very convincing argument before I would consider privatising current police services. It is apparent that previous decisions have been made in relation to privatisation across a range of public services where standards have been allowed to drop as a result of these types of decisions being made.

I have no connection with any company that may be interested in a police contract.