CALL this democracy? Don’t make me laugh.

According to Anthony Stansfeld, the re-elected Police and Crime Commissioner, ‘The campaign has gone very well’.

What campaign would that be I wonder? I certainly wasn’t aware of it, and in how many towns and villages in the Thames Valley did the populace know about it?

Not all that many I suspect. Yet Mr Stansfeld seems pleased with a turnout of 25.6 per cent out of 1.7 million people.

If my arithmetic is correct I make this to be 435,200, and as the votes cast were 412,155 this would seem to imply that the 15,000 spoilt ballot papers are included in the overall total, although I appreciate the 1.7 million is not a precise figure.

Whether included or not, it was not such a great result really, certainly nothing to be complacent about, and does little to justify the costly electoral bill.

WILLIAM PATIENCE Merganser Drive Bicester