Why do we need elected police commissioners? Don't be fooled, this isn't about devolving power to local communities, it's a chance to shift the blame

After election fever comes the comedown.

As those days and nights spent sweating over the prospect of a Romney victory, watching Karl Rove's mathematical meltdown, and wondering whether Obama really could take Florida dissipate into the cold reality of "fiscal cliffs" and "grand bargains", elections junkies the country over are being forced to go cold turkey. The  psephologists have crawled back to their academic lairs and Nate Silver has been returned to his magic box.

But just when it seems nothing could top the thrill of seeing Romney vanquished and Obama re-elected as only the forth Democrat President to win two terms since 1900, a new election hoves into view. And this one you can actually vote in! Yes, that's right dear voter, this Thursday is the elections for England and Wales' 41 police and crime commissioners (PCCs).

Except, inexplicably, it seems the rest of the UK isn't exactly radiating with enthusiasm. Large numbers are completely oblivious to the fact it's even taking place, with voter turnout expected to dip below 20%, a record low for a national UK election, while the vast majority of people are unable to name any of their local candidates.

All of which suggests this was not a burning issue for the UK electorate. So why exactly is it happening? And what will the new commissioners actually do? According to the Home Office website, the PCCs will have influence over key areas like CCTV, street lighting, graffiti and tackling gangs, but their central purpose is to

ensure the policing needs of their communities are met as effectively as possible, bringing communities closer to the police, building confidence in the system and restoring trust.

In other words, it's all about local democracy: "Bringing more of a public voice to policing and giving the public a name and a face to complain to if they aren't satisfied."

Which is convenient, because with a 20% cut to the police budget in the pipeline and the loss of 15,000 officers by 2015, one would imagine there's a whole lot of people about to feel very unsatisfied. Notice a rise in anti-social behaviour or a drop-off in police response times a couple of years down the line? Don't bother the Government with your quibbling, your PCC clearly just hasn't been doing their job properly. Off with their head.

The idea that this is a genuine exercise in localism just simply isn't credible, because the Coalition is only interested in devolving power to two sectors: the private and the voluntary. If you want to know what Cameron and Osborne really think of local government, go and count the number of empty offices at council buildings across the land.

While I'm sure the individual PCCs will, once elected, work hard for their local communities, they ultimately look set, as Polly Toynbee put it in Dogma and Disarray: Cameron at Half-Time, to be "squeezed into insignificance between an interventionist Home Office and the private contractors lined-up to take over large slices of policing." This is, after all, a Home Office determined to decide where and how the money is spent like never before. Ironically, it's with the privatisation of the police that the PCCs could have the most - indeed, a worrying amount - of influence. As shadow home secretary Yvette Cooper pointed out in a piece for the Guardian:

The new commissioners will face serious decisions on the future of policing and private contracts. A strong push is under way both from Tory government ministers and from private companies to contract out large swaths of public policing, yet there has been no debate about the risks or the safeguards needed.

The introduction of PCCs also further politicises our police force. While the founder of the modern police force Sir Robert Peel's claim that the police should act "in complete independence of policy" was always a pipedream - the Battle of Orgeave, anyone? - there's no question that the PCC system has the potential to turn policing into a microcosm of party politics.

But let's not be pessimistic. My hope is that individual PCCs will use their position to hold central government to account: speaking up on swingeing cuts, vehemently opposing further privatizations and loudly voicing the concerns of their local communities. They might have been intended as political window dressing, but who's to say they can't make their voices heard?

Did Sarah Palin take drugs? And does it matter? After all, Obama took the White House despite admitting he inhaled

The Golden Latrine once snorted a sherbet fountain on the school bus in the mistaken belief that he would experience profound spiritual insight and euphoria. What actually resulted was a profound sneezing fit and a week's worth of blocked sinuses.

Seriously though, drugs are no laughing matter (well, except for nitrous oxide). While our elected representatives may, on occasion, take cash in brown-paper envelopes or conduct steamy affairs with high-class vice girls, surely none of them have stooped so low to dabble in controlled substances? Wasn't the message on Grange Hill clear enough? Just say no.

Imagine my shock then on reading that US presidential hopeful Sarah Palin has been accused of using cocaine and marijuana in a new "tell-all" biography. While the image of Palin hoofing coke off the side of a snowmobile and getting stoned with a groovy college professor is undoubtedly an enticing one, the evidence for the accusations seems pretty sketchy.

But if it was true, the model for responding to these kind of allegations has to be Conservative MP, chick-lit author and walking self-advert Louise Mensch. After speaking eloquently as a member of the Select Committee responsible for grilling Murdoch senior and junior, she was (entirely coincidentally, I might add) contacted by a journalist who said they had information that she had taken drugs in a nightclub with violinist Nigel Kennedy while working in the music industry.

Her tactic for dealing with this accusation? Outright denial? Cowering in fear? Getting straight on the blower to Max Clifford for some hasty "image management"? None of the above. She simply admitted it sounded likely, but her memory of the particular night was unclear (presumably because her head was clouded with said substances).

What a breath of fresh air! And what a change it made to the parade of New Labour politicians coming out to mumble and sheepishly admit to smoking cannabis, once or twice, when they were students. Alistair Darling even felt obliged to state that didn't like the taste (echoes of Clinton's "I did not inhale").

Before we jump on the bandwagon and condemn politicians for being elusive and mealy-mouthed, we should ask ourselves why they are so cagey about revealing details of past indiscretions. The truth is, our culture expects our elected representatives to be whiter-than-white - take instance, the outpouring of public anger at the expenses scandal (despite the fact fiddling your expenses is almost a national sport). Who among us hasn't got past experiences we aren't proud of? A person with no regrets would be a very boring person indeed.

But does the Louise Mensch drug-use story perhaps indicate that we are moving beyond such retrospective moral hand-wringing? Lurid stories of Chancellor George Osborne's alleged drug use have hit the news again this week, but let's remember that evidence of past use hasn't been an impediment to either of the last two US Presidents: George W Bush was a recovering alcoholic and Obama openly discussed using marajuana and cocaine in his memoir, Dreams from My Father . Obama even went on record to confirm that he inhaled , adding: "That was the point".

The truth is that both Brits and Americans love the idea of redemption - hence the phenonemal success of the X-Factor with its sob stories and "this is my last shot" narrative arcs. What the public demand is not that our politicians are squeaky clean, but that they are simply honest enough to come clean about their pasts.