Madam,

A few things concern me about some matters reported in your excellent publication.

Firstly, on 14 April you gave a list of the candidates for the post of police and crime commissioner, with a brief summary of each candidate’s experience. Fine. But I thought that this position was about enabling and controlling the standards of policing in North Wales, rather than dancing to a particular political party’s tune. Surely, it should have absolutely nothing to do with politics and the resulting dogma. If I am wrong and it actually is all about politics, then the post must be a complete waste of public money as the job could be done by the appropriate party headquarters.

So, secondly, what on earth is Plaid’s Lord Elis-Thomas talking about (8 April) when he warns voters to back a Labour-sponsored candidate so as to avoid the outrageous possibility of a UKIP candidate getting the job of commissioner? Again, are we playing party politics or are we talking about a decent standard of policing?

Mind you, his suggestion – or, rather, the apparent reasoning behind it – is in accord with current political sensitivities regarding the job of police and crime commissioner, the elections for the Welsh Assembly, and the referendum over UK’s future in or out of Europe. It appears that every other political party is running scared over UKIP’s challenge. Why should this be? Are they actually accepting that UKIP has a better approach than they do and is likely therefore to win the voters’ favour? Now, I’m not a member of UKIP, but it makes one wonder if perhaps they have something the voters want when the other political parties are so scared of them.

If the political outcome of the Senedd election is that Labour loses power, we will not get a one-party Assembly government, as the Conservative electioneering suggests. We will have a coalition, which will only function with the best ideas of all the constituent parties – and that has got to be better than dogma-driven politicking.

When are politicians going to get the idea that their function is simply management of a very large concern – the country?

Yours etc

Hugh M Jones

Dinas Terrace

Criccieth.