A packet of biscuits will now have the power to allocate funding and police resources to areas most affected by crime in the Avon and Somerset region after a resounding win in the Police and crime commissioner elections. The biscuits, who staged a beautifully advertised 3-day campaign and wrapped themselves in metallic blue livery including a badge which looked slightly like an official crest intended to exude ‘confidence and authority’, will also have the last say on who will be the local chief of police for the next four years.
Polling stations closed at ten o’clock last night and whilst the teams of vote-counters expected to be up all night, all were sent home early after it became clear that the hob nobs had won decisively with a majority of twenty seven.
A late entry to the election, the packet of biscuits narrowly made the ballot papers after its agent filed a deposit of 14 custard creams and supplied a picture of the hob nobs looking wrapped, united, tanned, relaxed and very able to command the respect of the public.
‘The uniform definitely helped sway my vote,’ said Dennis Sturgeon, one of the 31 voters interviewed as they left the polling station in Weston-Super- Mare. ‘I just looked down the ballot paper and saw ‘man I don’t know’, ‘man who was a bit too smiley’, ‘woman’, and then I saw something I liked, believed I could trust, and felt I could give my vote to, which turned out to be a packet of hob nobs.’
Meetings will be held once a month within the new structures enshrined within the electoral law where issues will be discussed and decisions made. Sceptics have pointed out that since a non-reply from the new police commissioner is effectively a veto, and since packets of biscuits can’t usually talk, the activities of the police in the area seem unlikely to change for the period of its term of office.
But voting around the country for the other 40 commissioner posts told a similar story, with a pumpkin leading the way in Surrey, a cute little pony now setting the budgets in Cheshire and David Icke taking up office in, around, through and under greater Manchester.
But as the euphoria of the vote subsided, Mr Sturgeon began expressing regrets at being swayed so easily to cast his vote without properly paying attention to the issues or indeed the candidates. ‘I didn’t realise they were chocolate hob nobs. Don’t get me wrong, some of my best friends say they’re lovely, but I really can’t stand them,’ he conceded after a period of brief reflection, ‘Can I vote again? Is John Prescott standing?’