Talk:2012 England and Wales police and crime commissioner elections

Page Location and Name

Official title is 'Police and CRIME Commissioners' and they will only be England and Wales (excluding London)

Would police_and_crime_commissioner_elections,_England_and_Wales,_2012 be a better location? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 212.137.36.228 (talk) 09:59, 28 September 2011 (UTC)

Who votes?

It is not clear whether only police staff vote or the whole population. --82.67.63.50 (talk) 10:59, 23 March 2012 (UTC)

I think this is now clear from the lead paragraphs. Sussexonian (talk) 22:14, 21 June 2012 (UTC)

What to do with this article?

As party nominees are being chosen, the question arises how to display the candidates' names, and eventually voting results. I see no point in creating 40+ pages each containing one election, with most attracting little public interest. So I would suggest simply that an Election box, preferably a Compact Election Box, could be placed on the page and populated with confirmed candidate names. As far as I can see the Conservative Party willl name its candidates during July and that would be a possible time to make this change. The results part of the page would look something like Manchester Council election, 2011. I may even make an Election Box capable of showing the second preference results. Comments? Sussexonian (talk) 22:14, 21 June 2012 (UTC)

Well in general as campaigning starts there should be enough material on each election to create a separate article on it, if someone should choose to write some. There will be some fairly significant local press coverage, with some national names commenting on particular candidates, etc. Whilst keeping them all under the current article makes sense at the moment, it might be difficult to maintain. That in mind, as well as some discussion about these elections as a set (how they came about, criticism and support, that sort of thing) then the rest is likely to be a summary of the results; the candidates and nominees wouldn't have to be on this page but the individual pages. Grandiose (me, talk, contribs) 22:37, 21 June 2012 (UTC)

Just to comment that even in a General Election, very few stories about individual candidates find their way onto constituency articles, so I would not expect so many here that couldn't be accommodated on this page. But we can wait and see ... Sussexonian (talk) 19:45, 2 July 2012 (UTC)

Changes and Suggestions to Article

I have over the past couple of days made some changes to the article which I hope make the page look better. I have added a info box to head the article which pictures of the three main party leaders as well as the usual election info. I entirely with the layout for each of the elections in England and Wales as its not necessary for 41 separate pages as I fear there is going to be overall little public intrest. I do have some suggestions which would help to make the page look a lot better

• A election map be made of the 41 Police force areas within England & Wales where Police and Crime Commissioner elections are to be held which also exuludes the Metropolitian & City of London Police Force Areas as no elections are being held in these areas and be added onto the page. This can be either a map of England & Wales or two separate maps of England & Wales however I feel the latter is optional.

• Could the Union Jack be replaced with Flags of England & Wales in the info as this election is not UK-wide, I have personaly tried to do this but seems to only let one flag appear at any one time, if not then Union Jack I suppose will have to stay in place.

• Can the page be linked in to other election pages for the United Kingdom as it is polital

• More coverage of news and events related to the elections as we lead up to Polling day on November 15

• Some photos if possible

(MOTORAL1987 (talk) 13:57, 23 October 2012 (UTC))

Hey Motoral. First of all, thanks for the changes you've made, they are very constructive. I'll try and fathom how to include the flags of England and Wales and get back to you on that. If this article isn't already linked to local election articles, I'll get that sorted by the end of today doktorb _words^deeds 15:25, 23 October 2012 (UTC)

Hey Doktorbuk Thanks for uploading the new map which will come in very handy for the upcoming elections, just one thing about that map why is there no outline for Wales when there is a outline border for England. Also thanks for looking at the England and Wales Flag issue andfor adding links. This is a great improvement!! (MOTORAL1987 (talk) 21:07, 23 October 2012 (UTC))

Adding UKIP to the info-box would make some sense, as UKIP is fielding 23 candidates.(CatCalledJim (talk) 20:48, 24 October 2012 (UTC))

The work has already been done. If it meets the rules, it should stay. JRPG (talk) 20:58, 24 October 2012 (UTC)

It is nearly three weeks until the Police and Crime Commissioner Elections, so we have plenty of time before we can say the work is done. I am only arguing for the improvement and the reliability of this article. It just doesn't make sense how UKIP are fielding the same number of candidates as the Lib Dems yet they are not even in the info-box.(CatCalledJim (talk) 00:02, 26 October 2012 (UTC))

I removed the UKIP section on the infobox as it made the page look untidy however I am happy too see them back on the info page if the English Democarats are made as a fifth party in the info box but as they are only standing five candidates I dont see it being nesseury.(MOTORAL1987 (talk) 14:43, 26 October 2012 (UTC))

On this point I was wondering whether there's a danger of over emphasising the parties in this election. Although it makes sense for other elections it's clear that independent candidates are going to do unusually well (although I don't know if any will win) because of the specific nature of the posts being elected. I wonder if there is a way to highlight the independent vote (which will likely outstrip Lib Dem and UKIP's vote nationally. Obviously one problem is that they are all different but I think to write them out of the picture will give an unfairly distorted picture. Not sure what the best way to do that is though... 87.112.83.16 (talk) 11:52, 16 November 2012 (UTC)

Political Opinion (Especially Plaid Cymru)

Could we have a section on the political opinion towards on the upcoming PCC elections as only Labour and the Conservatives are fielding candidates in all 41 Police Forces Area as this is a major issue in itself, especially would like to know the political opinion of the smaller parties especially the views from Plaid Cymru has they are not fielding a single candidate in Wales and there is no mention at all of why they are not taking part on the main article so I think a section on this is much needed as there are mixed very mixed political feelings on weither these elections should even be taking place. (MOTORAL1987 (talk) 15:00, 26 October 2012 (UTC))

You might also be interested in this. JRPG (talk) 21:00, 30 October 2012 (UTC)

And this JRPG (talk) 21:34, 30 October 2012 (UTC)

File on 4 Merging of police forces.

This radio item was extremely interesting showing that previous home secretaries AND the police themselves are in favour of merging police forces. It should be available as a podcast soon but if anyone wants to use the source before I get round to its, please do so. JRPG (talk) 20:55, 30 October 2012 (UTC)

Duration of office

There is no mention of the duration of office. Is it four years like the London Mayor? I feel we should mention this somewhere in the article. Paul MacDermott (talk) 21:10, 30 October 2012 (UTC)

The duration of office is four years with a salary of £65,000 to £100,000 but the next PCC elections are planned for May 2016 so they fall at the same time as other local elections so for this term only it will be just three and a half years.(90.210.23.255 (talk) 15:50, 10 November 2012 (UTC))

Infobox inclusion criteria

I think it would be good before the election to agree on what the criteria should be for a party to be included in the infobox - that would be better than having arguments after the election where people's criteria just happens to allow the inclusion of their preferred party. I suggest a cut-off point of 5% on average across the areas that a party is standing in, as most parties, perhaps because of the size of the deposit needed to stand a candidate, are not standing in every area. One alternative is to have a cut-off point of 5% of all votes cast, but I don't think that would be fair on all the parties apart from Labour and the Conservatives. What do other people think? Kookiethebird (talk) 05:04, 31 October 2012 (UTC)

Should be raised on the Wikipedia:WikiProject Politics of the United Kingdom page. JRPG (talk) 15:38, 31 October 2012 (UTC)

General consensus for summary boxes is 5% for the election before/result, as required. This is not an election we've had before so there's a good reason to put no box at all, or a box with as many parties as we could possibly fit. My personal preference is the "main three" plus UKIP, as Farage's party is standing as many candidates as the LibDems so there's a notability claim. No other party deserves mention. doktorb _words^deeds 16:51, 31 October 2012 (UTC)

Overall results table

Once the elections are over, it would be good to have a table giving the total votes for the whole country for each party and candidate, say for each one that gets at least 5,000 votes. Kookiethebird (talk) 01:25, 15 November 2012 (UTC)

Information on candidates

I have removed information that should not be included such as what they stand for e.g "having never been a member of a political party. His main pledges are Justice for All, and a focus on crime prevention and reduction of re-offending rates by partnering with voluntary organisations and the NHS" as this kind of information is both irrelevant and should not be on the wikipedia article. The same could be said about this "an Eastleigh Borough Councillor with family connections to Hampshire Police", so what if he has family connections to the Hampshire Police, why does that need to be included?

I have also cut down certain people's job titles e.g former Chairman of Devon & Cornwall Police Authority, former Liberal Democrat Chairman of Devon County Council and Resources Chair and Board Member APA and replaced it with former Lib Dem Cllr as that is how they are described in the articles.

I have done the same here: "* Jonathan Arnott is the UKIP candidate. He is 31 years old, born and lives in Sheffield, and is General Secretary of the party" why do people need to know he is from Sheffield and is 31, that is why he has a wiki article so people can find out this information and so I have replaced it with * Jonathan Arnott, General Secretary of the UK Independence Party — is the UKIP candidate

Removed this person: *Ian Kealey was selected as the UKIP candidate, but has withdrawn. as they have since withdrawn. 86.1.26.36 (talk) 09:02, 13 November 2012 (UTC)

I really don't see the problem with including a few basic details about each candidate. We don't need to duplicate their entire Wikipedia articles in this page, but a one-line description is fine. Most of the information you describe as irrelevant I think is actually quite pertinent to this article. Also, abbreviated descriptions like "Lib Dem Cllr" should be avoided when "Liberal Democrat Councillor" is perfectly readable. I agree that some of the descriptions could be rewritten for style/POV issues, but just deleting swathes of descriptions is not helful. Prouder Mary 10:35, 13 November 2012 (UTC)

Photos & Turnout!

it would be great if we could have some photos of polling stations taken during tomorrows elections and added onto the page and also might be nice to have some photos of some of the higher profile candidates like Lord Prescott and some others to name. Also a secion on voter tournout and public opinion might also not be a bad idea to add to the page either. It will be intresting to see what in tomorrows elections! (94.11.64.207 (talk) 23:09, 14 November 2012 (UTC))

Results boxes, turnout and winners

I've created two quick templates to go with the results boxes: Template:Election box supplementary vote turnout and Template:Election box supplementary vote win. As the election boxes for supplementary voting are two columns bigger, the normal boxes aren't wide enough. For reference, here are the Wiltshire results, which use both templates at the end.

Also, make sure you edit the 'fullwidthvotes' tag to (at least) the total votes for the winning candidate (here 35319), as they're set to 18000 by default.

If you're getting code errors in the result tables, ensure you are not using commas with the Election box supplementary vote template. Use just digits (ie. 16198 rather than 16,198)!

Wiltshire Commissioner election, 2012 (BBC News)
Party		Candidate	1st round		2nd round			1st round votesTransfer votes, 2nd round
			Total	Of round	Transfers	Total	Of round
	Conservative	Angus Macpherson	28,558	36.2%	6,761	35,319		​​
	Labour	Claire Moody	16,198	20.6%	4,959	21,157		​​
	Independent	Colin Skelton	11,446	14.5%	0	11,446		​​
	Liberal Democrats	Paul Batchelor	10,130	12.9%	0	10,130		​​
	UKIP	John Short	7,250	9.2%	0	7,250		​​
	Independent	Liam Silcocks	5,212	6.6%	0	5,212		​​
Turnout			78,794	15.8%
	Conservative win

~~ Woodgreener (talk) 06:34, 16 November 2012 (UTC)

Why is there a column labelled "none" on this and other boxes ? - Racklever (talk) 08:44, 16 November 2012 (UTC)