ELEMENTS of the whole Police and Crime Commissioner election campaign have been farcical and now, just 24 hours before you’re asked to vote, there is still confusion about who you’ll actually be putting in power.

Along with the Commissioner, there will be a deputy in post. Or maybe not.

And if there is one, you may or may not be allowed to know who it will be as you write that X in whichever candidate’s box you select.

As we report today, only two of the six candidates have declared who their deputy will be. One will only announce his deputy’s identity once he has his rear end metaphorically sitting in the Commissioner’s chair in Kidlington, while two others haven’t really made a decision.

And we don’t know if it is a part-time or full-time role, but salaries of £50,000 are being bandied about. That’s £50k of your tax money, by the way.

What happens, as well, if one of the candidates who has not named their deputy prior to the election is then incapacitated a few days after?

It is not far off the electoral standards of your average banana republic, rather than a vote for a massively important civic role in modern-day Britain.

To be fair to the candidates in Thames Valley, their vagueness is clearly yet another symptom of the omnishambles in the creation of the role by the Government.

This newspaper has tried to inform readers about this new role to take the responsibility to cast their vote.

But if the whole election turns out to be a farce through public indifference, the Government will only have itself to blame for implementing a lame duck system open to utter ridicule.