WHY hold the election for Police and Crime Commissioner anyway? I already have an MP, a county councillor, a district councillor and my parish councillors to approach concerning the local police.

Ballot papers are made out this time for SV (supplementary voting) a system new to most citizens - not the simple and usual first-past-the-post.

The total cost of the election has been put at �75m, at a time when our priority should be to act with financial restraint - but if you think you’ll get a new copper in your village, hard luck.

The aim of the election in Cambridgeshire and Peterborough is to find someone who will supervise the police on a new private computer business, whose chief executive may be expected to earn �500,000 per year.

The scheme has been put forward by Lord Wasserman of Pimlico in the City of Westminster - a Canadian who is adviser to HM Government. Lord Wasserman was raised to the peerage on January 13, 2011. His advisory background includes work with police departments in the USA.

This further lurch towards Conservatised private manipulation is supported in Cambridge by Sir Graham Bright, the only candidate to put out a glossy (presumably expensive) brochure. His leaflet, headed ‘Huntingdon’, asks people to “vote only Conservative”.

I regard this election as an attempt at politicising our police force. Surely we do not want to accept USA practices in our hitherto independent country.

My personal thanks go to our hard working and independent police force in Cambridgeshire.

FRANK OWENS

Meadow Close

Little Paxton