:01:31. > :01:33.And in the South East - voters snub politics as usual as independents
:01:33. > :01:43.win two out of three Police Commissioner elections in the
:01:43. > :01:43.
:01:43. > :41:27.Apology for the loss of subtitles for 2384 seconds
:41:27. > :41:32.I'm Julia George and this is the Sunday Politics in the South East.
:41:32. > :41:35.Coming up later. In search of innovation or more of the same? The
:41:35. > :41:38.newly elected Commissioners in Kent, Sussex and Surrey tell us their
:41:38. > :41:41.plans for policing over the next four years.
:41:41. > :41:46.With me in the studio today is Conservative MP for South Thanet
:41:46. > :41:49.Laura Sandys and the former Labour MP for Gillingham Paul Clark.
:41:49. > :41:59.Welcome. I assume both of you cast your vote in the Police
:41:59. > :42:00.
:42:00. > :42:06.Commissioner elections this week? We did. Did you cast a postal vote?
:42:06. > :42:12.A went to the polling station. have a postal vote, but I voted on
:42:12. > :42:18.the day. I presume you knew who you're going to vote for? I think
:42:18. > :42:23.party loyalty was overriding. you were the personal secretary to
:42:23. > :42:30.John Prescott, the most famous lose their in these elections, how would
:42:30. > :42:34.he be feeling? Obviously, he would be disappointed. He wanted to take
:42:34. > :42:40.up the role and make a difference, but that is not to be the case, but
:42:40. > :42:43.I am sure that he will use his many talents to the benefit and the good
:42:43. > :42:47.of the nation. We will see what he does.
:42:47. > :42:53.If you missed it, here's a round-up of all the results and drama around
:42:53. > :42:56.the PCC elections in the South East with Lucinda Adam.
:42:56. > :43:00.It was independent state in Kent and Surrey as non-political
:43:00. > :43:04.candidate stormed to victory. The former chair of Kent Police the
:43:04. > :43:10.Authority had long-term magistrate and Barnes that went barely twice
:43:10. > :43:15.as many votes as her runner-up. A campaign to keep politics out of
:43:15. > :43:20.policing won voters. It is wrong to introduce party politics in
:43:20. > :43:27.policing. There is no place for it. It was obvious that this was
:43:27. > :43:31.happening. Kevin Hurley was the surprise winner in Surrey. The Tory
:43:31. > :43:39.candidate was the odds-on favourite, but Kevin Howley's manifesto won
:43:40. > :43:46.through. The Conservative Party candidate is duly collected for the
:43:46. > :43:53.Sussex Police area. In Sussex, a politician did when. Katie born his
:43:53. > :43:58.eight Mid-Sussex can't serve. -- is a Mid-Sussex councillor. They all
:43:58. > :44:02.get money from their police budgets to set priorities and hiring and
:44:02. > :44:12.firing the chief Constable, possibly. Botanic cold, foggy
:44:12. > :44:15.November day, turnout was dismal.. An average of just 15 %. In an
:44:15. > :44:19.election in bringing democracy to the people, there is talk of a
:44:19. > :44:26.democratic deficit. Can the candidates came to have the mandate
:44:26. > :44:32.of the people orris support too thin to manage the Thin Blue Line?
:44:32. > :44:36.Joining last to discuss these elections in the police county's is
:44:36. > :44:39.our political editor. The independence willing to lead to
:44:39. > :44:44.three come up what is this saying about how people feel about
:44:44. > :44:49.politicians? We cannot read too much into it, because there was a
:44:49. > :44:55.very low turnout. These are not generally elections. People were
:44:55. > :44:59.not voting for MPs, but it does show that they have turned away. In
:44:59. > :45:05.the Tory heartland of Kent, they turned away from the traditional
:45:05. > :45:08.politics. In Sussex, they went for the Tory candidate and it was more
:45:08. > :45:16.on party political lines. In the second vote, it was Katie against
:45:16. > :45:21.the Labour candidate. Labour did win on the first count in many
:45:21. > :45:25.urban areas, like Hastings, Brighton, Crawley, and they say
:45:26. > :45:29.that is a sign of a comeback. I do not know if that will be replicated
:45:29. > :45:34.in a general election, because people have voted differently year.
:45:34. > :45:39.We cannot stop without mentioning the turnout. We were fractionally
:45:39. > :45:45.above the national average, but only by a fraction. How significant
:45:45. > :45:50.was the turnout? It was always going to be low. Why hold election
:45:50. > :45:57.in November? That is because the Lib Dems want to ditch them, not in.
:45:57. > :46:01.Difficult to get people have to. The local elections in May, people
:46:01. > :46:05.would have been at the polling stations are anyway. A lot of
:46:05. > :46:09.people were confused by the voting system. We did not have these
:46:09. > :46:13.elections before, so people were unsure what they were voting for.
:46:13. > :46:19.As they said in Sussex, looking at the first London mayoral elections,
:46:19. > :46:24.it was very low, the turnout. They can only build on this. If we look
:46:24. > :46:31.at the nature of voting, there was a record of spoiled ballots. The
:46:31. > :46:35.Guardian said that many people that spoiled their ballot, one of the
:46:35. > :46:41.ballot said, where was my third win you decided to get rid of county
:46:41. > :46:45.level police are parities? This is not democratic, and he put in an
:46:45. > :46:53.extreme you read a word. People had their say by not voting, Paul
:46:53. > :46:57.Clark? -- rude word. Yes, some of this was a protest. We did not know
:46:57. > :47:01.what the candidates were and what they stood for because there was no
:47:01. > :47:05.publicly-funded literature, that even a booklet about he was
:47:05. > :47:09.standing at what they stood for. And in terms of the supplementary
:47:09. > :47:14.voting system, there were some spoilt ballots that were
:47:14. > :47:20.deliberately spoiled, but I also saw a lot at the Medway count for
:47:20. > :47:27.people had put to crossers, but in the same column. So they became
:47:27. > :47:32.spoilt. How did she see ballot papers? The adjudication process
:47:32. > :47:36.has to agree with candidates from each of the people standing up as
:47:36. > :47:44.to whether these can be accepted or not. A bad thing suspicious!
:47:44. > :47:51.Cleared up! -- nothing suspicious. Somebody said on Friday night, I
:47:51. > :47:56.suspect we will regret setting up these policing commissionaires? Do
:47:56. > :48:01.you agree? No, it is not just about the police, it is about policing
:48:01. > :48:06.and crime and it is very exciting because it is meant to co-ordinate
:48:06. > :48:14.work on policing and what the local authorities do at how the schools
:48:14. > :48:19.actually explain to young people in deprived areas about what crime is,
:48:20. > :48:24.at the issues about education. why was that message not out there?
:48:24. > :48:28.People were not interested, if they didn't care or they didn't
:48:28. > :48:35.understand. I do believe that a more November is the wrong time for
:48:35. > :48:39.an election. It is cold and dark but it is not co-ordinated with
:48:39. > :48:45.other elections. To us that make people are apathetic?! What we
:48:45. > :48:49.would have had a higher turnout. People could have got information
:48:49. > :48:54.out if it had been combined with other elections, but this does not
:48:54. > :48:58.mean that this is the first election for this political role.
:48:58. > :49:03.People would be more interested going forward. Too many excuses for
:49:03. > :49:09.people? There were debates on BBC South East Today, Radia debates on
:49:09. > :49:14.the local radio stations? You could find out about this if you cared.
:49:14. > :49:17.Yes, one of the things that we were convinced of was that this was the
:49:17. > :49:23.wrong policy for the wrong time, spending hundreds of millions of
:49:23. > :49:27.pounds while cutting 125 police officers. The mistake was not
:49:27. > :49:34.engaging people. They did not want to be engaged because they did not
:49:34. > :49:41.believe it was a pariah to. And everything that should happen exist
:49:41. > :49:47.today. -- believe it was a priority. There was work within units of
:49:47. > :49:52.operation command. Did Ministers not need to care more? Nick Herbert
:49:52. > :49:54.was pushing this through, he has since gone and he reportedly said
:49:54. > :49:59.that Number Ten and Conservative Central Office lacked interest and
:49:59. > :50:03.he said that is why there were candidates that were not as strong
:50:03. > :50:08.as your light, did the Ministers care about this election? If yes,
:50:08. > :50:13.and in Kent, we worked very hard for a very good candidate. What I
:50:13. > :50:17.think will happen is, he will see a much greater interest in this role
:50:17. > :50:20.when we have seen the first four years and seen if it has the right
:50:20. > :50:26.level of leadership and then when we combine it with other elections,
:50:26. > :50:31.we will get the right turnout and level of engagement. Let's see add
:50:31. > :50:38.to the people are, we know the names, but what are the key issues?
:50:38. > :50:43.How do they aim to win over the voters with their plans?
:50:43. > :50:48.That people loved the region have chosen the person they want to
:50:48. > :50:53.oversee where they lead. -- the people in the region. It is a big
:50:53. > :50:59.chap and one that warrants a salary of �85,000 in Kent and Sussex. --
:50:59. > :51:04.big job. But questions were asked about what the new commissioners
:51:04. > :51:10.were to all day and if they can't churn promises into reality? There
:51:10. > :51:15.are budget cuts of around �50 million per force. Atop issue that
:51:15. > :51:23.resonated with the voters was edgy social behaviour. Bat has been a
:51:23. > :51:27.top priority for many years. What can these police commissioners do
:51:27. > :51:32.differently? In it is not something the police can do on their own, so
:51:32. > :51:35.my role is to bring the police together with other organisations,
:51:35. > :51:40.so the council, the voluntary organisations, the probation
:51:40. > :51:49.services, the schools, bringing them together to work as one team
:51:49. > :51:56.to fight crime in Sussex. His zero- tolerance policing a gimmick?
:51:56. > :52:00.It means not ignoring things that are going wrong, so for example, if
:52:00. > :52:04.yobs are playing up, the police deal with them. They are not
:52:05. > :52:09.allowed to dominate public spaces, shopping centres, bus stations or
:52:09. > :52:13.whatever. Zero tolerance is the police, the public officials taking
:52:13. > :52:17.back the ground for the public. have to preserve the visible
:52:18. > :52:22.community policing which is what the people want, it is their top
:52:22. > :52:26.priority. But while a decision behaviour remains a problem, of
:52:26. > :52:31.their crime is falling consistently in the South East. Violent crime is
:52:31. > :52:37.down by as much as 20 %. With these big years, there was such a change
:52:37. > :52:42.in the way the policing was run, is this necessary at all? The real
:52:42. > :52:47.issue is the sense that it's there is a response that they are getting
:52:47. > :52:52.when they call or report a crime and the way they dealt with. Many
:52:52. > :52:56.police officers are excellent, but we need to do more for the ethos of
:52:56. > :53:03.dealing with anti-social behaviour, you jobbery, loutish, bullying
:53:03. > :53:06.behaviour. If had been looking at a predictive computer program that
:53:06. > :53:11.they used in America at the moment to predict where crime will take
:53:11. > :53:18.place. Why not do that, why not look everywhere you can to bring
:53:19. > :53:26.that crime? -- bring down crime? What not to enough to bring crime
:53:26. > :53:31.down? -- do enough. If crime is coming down, this is a very safe
:53:31. > :53:35.counties. It is a lower base to start from. It is important to
:53:35. > :53:38.support the police in the vital work they do in their communities.
:53:38. > :53:44.Within days of taking office, they would have to write a policing
:53:44. > :53:49.budget with cuts of �50 million to each force in the next four years.
:53:49. > :53:55.In times of austerity, Surrey Police has embarked on a radical
:53:55. > :54:04.scheme at outsourcing services. But it is highly controversial. I would
:54:04. > :54:09.be owed to bring in any external consultants. -- I would be lowered.
:54:09. > :54:15.I do not know why it went down that way to balance the books, I will
:54:15. > :54:20.look at this. Adalat privatise the police, I will not do it. -- I will
:54:20. > :54:24.not privatise. I will fight for the end of any more cuts to policing.
:54:24. > :54:30.We have to preserve visible community policing, which is what
:54:30. > :54:34.the people of Kent want. That is their top priority. Difficult times
:54:34. > :54:39.at the moment. The police had to find savings and it has been
:54:39. > :54:43.difficult, but despite that, year on year, crime is coming down.
:54:44. > :54:49.the three commissioners take office on Thursday and will save 84 year
:54:49. > :54:54.term before facing the voters again at the next election. -- will face
:54:54. > :54:58.a four year term. If crime is down, that is the first priority,
:54:58. > :55:04.secondly, fewer victims of crime, and thirdly, saving visible
:55:04. > :55:08.community policing and fourthly, Kent will have the most visible,
:55:08. > :55:13.accessible commissionaire in the entire country, because are limited
:55:13. > :55:18.by business to do that. It will not happen all light, I cannot promise
:55:18. > :55:23.the world, I would be a fool to do so. -- happen overnight. I hope
:55:23. > :55:30.that there would be a better turnout at the next election.
:55:30. > :55:36.would you measure your success? at is easy, it is when people stop
:55:36. > :55:40.moaning about Surrey Police. -- that is easy. A Ginette know if
:55:40. > :55:45.people ever stop moaning about these things! -- I do not know.
:55:45. > :55:49.Anne Barnes in Kent, not much of an endorsement if we are saying the
:55:49. > :55:54.reason she won is because she is independent and the budget not want
:55:54. > :55:59.politics. Is she a compelling candidate? If yes, she fought a
:55:59. > :56:03.great campaign, she won because people did not want party politics,
:56:03. > :56:09.what they saw as party politics in the prison that was commissionaire.
:56:09. > :56:13.This is in the handful that actually voted! She has also been
:56:13. > :56:18.the chair of the Kent Police of authority, and people recognise
:56:18. > :56:22.this scale that was there, that knowledge. What is the difference,
:56:22. > :56:26.between chairing a Kent policing authority and being be the police
:56:26. > :56:31.and crime Commissioner? She has an understanding of the police, but it
:56:31. > :56:35.is much more than that, this job, and I would like to have seen
:56:35. > :56:39.people that worked apart from the police and looked at it objectively.
:56:39. > :56:44.Hopefully she will bring some innovation and new ideas and will
:56:45. > :56:49.also keep together some of the task forces we have in place that link
:56:49. > :56:54.different services together. This is an innovation as a role and I
:56:54. > :56:59.hope we see some and not just more of the same. Louise, you had an
:56:59. > :57:02.interesting trip to New York as part of looking at the elections,
:57:02. > :57:06.and Anne Barnes has spoken about being innovative and predicting
:57:06. > :57:13.where crime will happen with computer modelling, what did you
:57:13. > :57:17.learn about how they use technology in America? They have got as system
:57:17. > :57:22.where they can take all of the statistics, so if your mobile phone
:57:22. > :57:27.is stolen, that becomes a statistic. They have honed in on where the
:57:27. > :57:32.crimes are taking place, a zero- tolerance policy brought in by the
:57:32. > :57:37.former police commissioner of New York. They have had phenomenal
:57:37. > :57:40.successes. They had driven down crime by 80 %. I put that to the
:57:40. > :57:44.commissioner, and he does not think that would happen overnight year,
:57:44. > :57:49.he says it is a phenomenal change in policing and the warning he had
:57:49. > :57:54.was do not expect results overnight. If they want to look at this model,
:57:54. > :57:59.there are ways to take these methods from bringing down crime
:57:59. > :58:03.here. It is a different model, not entirely the same relationship
:58:03. > :58:07.because the Commissioner here is elected, he is appointed over there
:58:07. > :58:11.by the mayor of the city. It is a difference has done, but some of
:58:11. > :58:15.these ideas for an Barnes seem to emulate what they're doing in New
:58:15. > :58:20.York. The other issue is the idea of zero-tolerance policing which
:58:20. > :58:24.brings us to Kevin Hurley in Surrey, and he has that a close
:58:24. > :58:30.relationship with the policing world, if does this making a good
:58:30. > :58:36.candidate? Obviously he has a lot of experience, but defeat exposes
:58:36. > :58:41.his experience in Iraq on the people of Surrey... Were at was his
:58:41. > :58:48.experience in Iraq? The set up policing mechanisms in Baghdad's,
:58:48. > :58:53.from what I understand. -- he set up. He obviously has come off from
:58:53. > :58:56.an agenda that it has zero- tolerance. How can you have zero
:58:56. > :59:02.tolerance is the lead party is cutting the police budgets, you
:59:02. > :59:09.need more police officers. I do not think that crime is necessarily
:59:09. > :59:14.related to exactly the finding of police. It is about integrating
:59:14. > :59:19.other issues, other social services. We look at where crime happens.
:59:19. > :59:23.Social services know the families because often they are a generation
:59:23. > :59:27.on generation. We know where the problems are lying. We need
:59:27. > :59:33.integrated responses. We need people to be able to do this with
:59:33. > :59:38.the police, social services, and the Home Office figures show 240
:59:38. > :59:43.people have gone in the Kent Police force in the last two years. That
:59:43. > :59:47.is destined to rise. In New York, they said it is not about bobbies
:59:48. > :59:52.on the beach, numbers are police officers, it is about targeting
:59:52. > :00:00.trouble spots. A lot of these people, we know where the crime is
:00:00. > :00:03.happening. We need to be fair to Katie born, she has won his Sussex.
:00:03. > :00:07.She has spoken about getting rid of the politics at the election is
:00:07. > :00:13.over, but surely you want her implementing Conservative ideals?
:00:13. > :00:20.Of the ideals are that we want to reduce crime and start looking
:00:20. > :00:26.attendees social behaviour. The -- at anti-social behaviour. We have
:00:27. > :00:30.put party politics, party machines behind candidates, but this is a
:00:30. > :00:36.non-partisan agenda. We need the right people that will co-ordinate
:00:36. > :00:40.the different issues. Someone standing as a conservative, someone
:00:40. > :00:43.standing as Labour, they will stand and those platforms and it is
:00:43. > :00:48.churlish to suggest that they will not follow those political agendas.
:00:48. > :00:55.I would just go back on this, I am not just talking about cutting
:00:55. > :01:00.bobbies on the beach, I am talking about the people that get a bad so
:01:00. > :01:05.named because they are bureaucrats, better working towards those
:01:05. > :01:09.partnerships so that they work. It is about having sophisticated
:01:09. > :01:15.systems to use the information that we have our juniors the people in
:01:15. > :01:18.the office doing that and bringing it together. We need to have a look
:01:18. > :01:28.at the other political stories this week, this is a round-up of the
:01:28. > :01:29.
:01:29. > :01:33.East Sussex County Council announced that needs to make cuts
:01:33. > :01:37.of �60 million in the next three years and once as much as 50 %
:01:37. > :01:42.could go from frontline services. If plans to reconfigure hospital
:01:42. > :01:46.services have been put forward by the NHS to the fury of campaigners.
:01:46. > :01:50.Managers want to concentrate emergency, higher risk, or the P
:01:50. > :01:58.Diddy in general surgery at Hastings as strokes services at
:01:58. > :02:02.Eastbourne. It does not make sense for he sporran. The Conservative MP
:02:02. > :02:08.for Hove and Portslade was attacked by a stone-throwing crowds of prose
:02:08. > :02:14.squatting protesters. He was meant to address students at the
:02:14. > :02:20.University of Sussex would have to be escorted away. And the former
:02:21. > :02:23.Tory MP for Maidstone and the Weald Ann Widdecombe came out of
:02:23. > :02:31.retirement to descends like an angel from above all for Children
:02:31. > :02:35.In Need. All for a good cars! -- calls.
:02:35. > :02:39.You can have a brilliant time when you leave politics!
:02:39. > :02:49.Ann Widdecombe, a symbol of what you can go on to after a great
:02:49. > :02:49.
:02:49. > :02:56.political career? Absolutely, doing some great stuff, a great cause.
:02:56. > :03:00.should call the Angel of the South! Just use the former MP, the current
:03:00. > :03:04.MP is in the news again. If they're saying that she should not be
:03:04. > :03:08.claiming for a second home in London, she has a constituency in
:03:08. > :03:14.Kent where she does that live, a home in Surrey and she is renting a
:03:14. > :03:18.property in London. Should she be claiming a second home allowance?
:03:18. > :03:24.know Helen very well, she is very meticulous and everything. I am
:03:25. > :03:28.sure she understands what the rules are. Morally, is it right? Everyone
:03:28. > :03:34.has different circumstances. It is a high-pressure job, different
:03:34. > :03:38.reasons to be in different parts of the country. It is important that
:03:38. > :03:43.the constituents believed they are getting the right service.
:03:43. > :03:47.doesn't live in her constituency, which you ever do that? No. The
:03:47. > :03:50.living and breathing and working with people and shopping with
:03:50. > :03:55.people down the High Street, what ever, you learn about your
:03:55. > :04:01.constituency problems. She has actually closed the office in the