Police and Crime Commissioner Has A Whinge About Media Coverage
Winston Roddick, our Police and Crime Commissioner until next week’s elections, has had a whinge about PCC election coverage – despite ignoring Wrexham.com’s efforts before and during his tenure.
In a press release, as usual not sent to Wrexham.com despite his PR company being paid for by public funds and being well aware of us (although we think we are blacklisted), Mr Roddick complains: “…the election campaigns of the candidates should receive much better coverage than they are getting at present.
“PCCs have much more responsibilities and authority than individual MPs and AMs and yet the election of them is getting scant attention by the press.
“The people need to know just how much policing has changed recently and that the role of PCC is one that requires a lot of relevant skills and experience. Effective press coverage will bring these out.
“It is therefore imperative that voters are able to make an informed choice and the media has a central role to play in the process. At the moment there is a huge democratic deficit, because the media are not training their spotlight on the PCC elections.
“I am urging the broadcast media and newspapers, along with online news outlets, to devote a great deal more coverage to this important matter.”
Mr Roddick’s newly found interest in ‘online news outlets’ and election coverage is amusing as when he was running for election we physically presented him, and all candidates, with a letter outlining who we are plus a Question and Answer list.
Mr Roddick did not bother to reply.
Thankfully for the people of North Wales there are some more forward thinking candidates looking for your vote with our wrexham.com/elections section containing Q&A answers from Arfon Jones, Julian Sandham, David Taylor and Matt Wright with only Simon Wall yet to reply. We ask them questions about the PCC role, precepts and the like, plus if they have ever committed a crime…
In the run up to polling day two candidates, Plaid Cymru’s Arfon Jones and Labour’s David Taylor have ignited some fire into the election with a historic tweets and online comments being the chosen weapons, with twitter’s Retweet button being the trigger.
The above comment thread ends up at this Wales Online article.
The above Wales Online article linked to can be found here.
It appears both candidates either recently or historically have resorted to the ‘Richard Keys Defence’ of various comments just being ‘banter’. Update: There is an apology from Trinity Mirror to David Taylor on their site here, from 2013.
In terms of the engagement and ‘democratic deficit’ the incumbent Mr Roddick speaks about we have some interactions with his PCC Office in public copied below…
FYI @NorthWalesPCC The expenses form http://t.co/GfeHq2jDwN is incorrect on some vertical columns, however overall total is right #£8.90
— Wrexham.com (@wrexham) December 13, 2014
@NorthWalesPCC Looked at a few others & only other we can’t work out is http://t.co/glYbnHdPaD last ‘other’ column total seems £114.50?
— Wrexham.com (@wrexham) December 13, 2014
@northwalespcc Do you employ a PR agency, if so which one and how much does it cost? Or is it easier if we FOI?
— Wrexham.com (@wrexham) January 26, 2015
@NorthWalesPCC is recent reports about Wrexham street pastors via invited journos or via paid PR company? If latter, how much does it cost?
— Wrexham.com (@wrexham) May 14, 2015
BBC’s @phi1mccan says Cheshire’s PCC is wanting iGAS to repay anti-fracker eviction cost, NWP units involved so same for us @northwalespcc ?
— Wrexham.com (@wrexham) February 8, 2016
@NorthWalesPCC bumping this public query from May 2015 on PR company costs. Still no answer…
— Wrexham.com (@wrexham) February 11, 2016
@NorthWalesPCC Bumping this earlier public query on PR costs, still unanswered, this time from January 2015.
— Wrexham.com (@wrexham) February 11, 2016
Although we have consistently been asking why his PR rebranded him as a ‘Crime Tsar’ and most recently a ‘Crime Boss’.
Anyone know if our Police and Crime Commissioner is a Tsar or a Tzar, and is there a difference? (but never a Czar for some reason)
— Wrexham.com (@wrexham) June 4, 2015
Roddick won the election back in 2012, the first of the new PCC posts, with 44% of the votes cast but 6.8% of the total electorate of North Wales.
One of our questions to the new group of candidates seeking your PCC vote is “At the time of writing the last public meeting minutes on the PCC website are from June 2015, the last minutes in the Scrutiny section are from September 2015. The most updated section on the site is the ‘news’ with lots of press releases. How will you increase transparency?”
You can see their responses on our election section…. wrexham.com/elections/
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