There was very little point in voting in the police Industrial Rights ballot, other than to save face by avoiding a low turnout.

This government has no intention of allowing anyone any further rights, indeed, the current drive is to reduce people’s rights, whether they be Human Rights, the ability to have a case heard by an employment tribunal or secret courts.

For those who are interested, 42% of police officers voted. Of those, 82% or 45,000 police officers, voted in favour of industrial rights.

Just for the record, I voted, and I voted in favour.

But let us hear no more of this nonsense from ministers about how less than 50% of the membership bothered to vote, and that somehow this dilutes the result, or makes it somehow less legitimate.

Rebut low police voting figures criticism (42%) by reminding people only 15% of voters turned out to elect the government flagship policy Police & Crime Commissioners, a peacetime low, and in some areas, no one voted at all!

Never forget this: Ministers were happy to go ahead with PCCs despite voting numbers which make the PFEW ballot look like a landslide! Ministers defended the record low turnout, claiming that this made “no difference” to the legitimacy of the policy; the PM himself said “Turnout was always going to be low”.

In this country we only ask people to vote. If they don’t vote, then it is up to them. Even if only two people ever voted, and they both voted ‘yes’ then it is ‘yes’ and that is the end of it. And 45,000 officers voted ‘yes’ and 10,000 voted ‘no’ to industrial rights.

In other news, the Nicola Edgington case, the IPCC can blame the police all they want. We all know that if society decides it is OK to release a schizophrenic killer with emotionally unstable personality traits from an indefinite hospital order after only four years, to later blame others for what happens is a bit rich.

Blame, blame, blame, criticise, criticise, criticise. How easy and satisfying to pint the finger at police.

There are many reasons why people who kill other people should be locked up for life. Probably the most pressing is so that they don’t kill even more people. It is not rocket science.