With Panto season almost upon us, the nation went to bed last night buzzing with excitement as though it was Christmas Eve, overwhelmed at what we might get the next day. Like little Timmy Cratchet, I'm afraid, we woke up to disappointment.
The election for Police commissioners was the Tory concept touted as slashing the ties between government and the police, offering transparency and independence and a stronger mandate than the unelected police authorities that the PCC replaces. What it delivered was a mandate for corruption with less than 20% of the electorate bothering to vote and all the main parties putting forward candidates.
The result was 15 Tory commissioners, 13 Labour and 11 independents.
The system used in the vote meant that some of the candidates who got most 1st choice votes, still did not win having had to get 50% of the vote to win the 1st round. Amongst those who got more votes in the first round but failed to secure the position was Labour veteran Lord Prescott, losing to his Tory counterpart in Humberside.
The vast majority of people did not vote because they knew nothing about the candidates. With hardly any campaigning to speak of and little coverage in the press, it may as well have been a closed ballot carried out in Westminster.
If David Cameron really wanted a fair and honest partisan free election then he should have ensured a level playing field for the candidates.
I was told by one candidate that his campaign cost around £200 while other splashed tens of thousands on the campaign trail. Some independent candidates were forced to pull out of the race unable to compete with the funding demands. The deposit alone was £500.
Yet again, rather than trying to find the best person for the job, we got the ones who could afford the job.
Only half a dozen of those elected were women.
Are we really to believe that a Tory candidate PCC in a Tory constituency under a Tory lead government, wont be influenced by the party?
The much criticised election could if done differently, have given us leaders for our under fire police officers, answerable to the electorate, responsible for running the force as the public demands. What we are likely to get is Party puppets doing as they are instructed by the party whips.
The one positive to come out of the fiasco is the number of independents who have been successful. They at least one would hope will not be swayed or pressured by political party lines, although one wonders how many have stood to further political ambitions. Presumably however, the independents who have succeeded are already wealthy or influential or well connected enough to not necessarily have the interest of the public at heart.
Of course, i am being cynical, and there will be some successful candidates who have not simply bought the position and who do have honourable intentions.
 While I wish them the very best in the role, history does inevitably tell us that even the well intentioned, principled, moral individuals soon  change their point of view and invariably loose their morals when they achieve the power they craved.
I hope that if Labour succeed at the next general election, they scrap the idea and have a proper fit for purpose way of running our police. A system not run by the village of Westminster, a system run by and answerable to us the tax payer that is about to pay £100,000 per annum to some of those elected in yeststerdays police farce.