WITH an historically low turn-out in voting for the role of Police Commissioner across the country – typically less than 15 per cent – how can the role or elected candidate claim any legitimacy or mandate to influence policing priorities or budgets?

Surely this is a case for referral to the Electoral Commission if ever there was one.

It must also be seen as a huge blow for the Tory party, so central was it to their manifesto on crime control.

Personally I think we are witnessing another example of the chipping away of democracy.

If 85 per cent of the population didn’t vote, the role has been dismissed by the electorate by default but will no doubt be pushed ahead.

In the same way that the huge changes to the NHS were forced through with no popular or professional mandate. Who voted for that?

Perhaps the greatest threat to the democratic process however is the reduction in services and benefits people across Europe are being asked to accept while still having their taxes deducted and raised from ever diminishing salaries.

You can’t keep taxing people and giving them nothing in return. The NHS is not and never has been “free at the point of need”, it was and is already been paid for through our taxes.

Until now.

LORAINE ZAVADIL, Huntly Road, Bournemouth