Clean Campaign Pledge

Dear Christine,

Over the next few weeks we will all be campaigning around Dyfed Powys, putting forward the policies and priorities we would pursue as Police and Crime Commissioner for our area.

I believe these elections are important, and the fact that you are standing means you must think so too. I am pleased that those who initially opposed PCCs have now come to see the benefits they can bring.

The Police and Crime Commissioner for Dyfed Powys will champion the effort to cut crime and make our communities safer places to live. He or she will be also strong voice for the victims of crime. Setting the policing budget and writing the local crime plan are very important jobs. Holding our police to account, on behalf of the public and with a democratic mandate from them, is a position of great trust and responsibility and one which I am sure each one of us would be honoured to fulfill.

It is vital that whoever is elected as the Police and Crime Commissioner for Dyfed Powys does nothing to politicise our police force; if elected, I will be proud to take the Oath of Impartiality. But I want to go further than that. It is vital that this election campaign does nothing to damage the public’s perception of and faith in our police or the office of police and crime commissioner. That is why I have signed a Clean Campaign Pledge which sets out my commitment to fighting a clean, fair and honest campaign.

There is nothing in this pledge which any candidate, of any party or none, should object to signing up to. It would be a great thing for local people in Dyfed Powys to know that all their candidates had agreed to leave aside negativity and dirty tricks and put the best interests of local people first. It would also be in the finest traditions of British policing.

I urge you to sign up and put the people of Dyfed Powys first.

Yours sincerely,

Christopher.

The full text of the pledge is below:

•I, the undersigned, pledge in the Dyfed Powys Police and Crime Commissioner election campaign:

•To be honest about police budgets, and not to scaremonger in ways that might frighten the most vulnerable members of our society, such as children and elderly people.

•Not to do anything to compromise the political impartiality of Dyfed Powys Police.

•To tell the truth about what I stand for and have achieved, and about what others stand for and have achieved.

•To refrain from personal attacks.

•To make only honest and reasonable promises.

•To fight a clean, positive and honest campaign around the issues of crime and policing that matter to the people of Dyfed Powys.

•I encourage voters:

•To expect from candidates decent and honest behaviour, inspired by the best traditions of British policing.

•To ask the candidates standing in this election whether they have signed up to the Pledge or not, and, if not, to encourage them to do so.

•To help us to enforce this Pledge, by reporting truthfully to us and to the media any apparent breaches of it.

Signed: