Constable Control

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Jon Bright (London, OK): Richard Brunstrom, chief constable of North Wales police, has provoked a very predictable round of headlines and self-important screaming by outlining again his support for the legalisation of drugs. Hard to pick my favourite of the cynical, misleading rebuttals - though David Davis' must be close:

If you strike the attitudes taken by this particular chief constable, if you thoughtlessly downgrade cannabis, if you treat dangerous drugs as 'no worse than aspirin', you make a gift to the drug dealers and criminals who are destroying the lives of so many young people

Davis knows of course that the real argument being made is legalisation - which would not exactly be a massive gift to drug dealers - which is why he has to twist Brunstrom's words to fit slightly. The irritating thing is not that Davis disagrees (he doesn't even bother with a counter argument) but that he is trying to pillory the constable for daring to express this type of view. But why have a real debate when there is an opportunity to do some easy politics?

The Daily Mail (from which the above Davis quote also comes) has an interesting set of responses (the mail is one of the few which actually allow comments straight on their news stories). Of course there are a lot of calls for resignation. But more than a few of them are mixed in with a call for democratic power to be exerted - a call for the local election of Chief Constables. This is part of a wider agenda of 'local democracy' of which I am a broad supporter and which has gained a lot of traction on OurKingdom.

Brunstrom is outspoken, but he was giving a straight answer to a straight question, backed up with evidence, and articulating an opinion he had long held and was no particular secret. He was brave to utter it - even though he is not directly elected, his job will be under threat. If he was democratically elected, we could probably assume his career would be finished - indeed it would never have got started.

This is a problem, therefore, for those who believe that, generally, more democracy means better decisions. If we had elected Chief Constables we would have more of the types of statement made by Davis and less of the types of statement made by Brunstrom. More public figures will be weighing their desire to pursue 'the public good' with the necessity to please a crowd and secure re-election. My point is not necessarily that legalisation would definitely be a positive move - though this is my opinion - but rather that the extension of democracy into the problem of drug use serves to suffocate debate about this issue. And can the stifling of people's ability to say what they really think ever make for better decisions?

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