Why Britain’s police commissioners are not living up to their promise

AS EVERY ENGLISH child knows, the Sheriff of Nottingham is always the baddie. His tyrannical rule is tempered only by Robin Hood, with a little help from his band of merry men. These days, Nottinghamshire’s law-and-order supremo is up for election every four years. And Paddy Tipping—properly known as the county’s police and crime commissioner (PCC)—can hardly be said to possess overweening ambition. One of his innovations is a “pension” for police dogs, so that their handlers do not pick up vet’s bills when the mutts are too old to work. “I can’t tell people what to do, by any means,” says the 70-year-old, an ex-Labour MP for Sherwood. “But I can change things.”