The EconomistMarch 14th 2020 Britain 252 count by a directly elected pcc. The new
watchdogs have power to hire and fire chief
constables, to write policing plans for the
force to follow and to set local taxes to pay
for policing. Voters will go to the polls in
May to pick a pccfor the third time.
The first generation of pccs have con-
founded critics who feared the possible
politicisation of policing. To be sure, they
have ruffled a few feathers. Lincolnshire’s
chief constable was reinstated in 2013 after
a court ruling that the pcc’s decision to sus-
pend him had been “irrational and per-
verse”. But most have struck up good rela-
tions with chiefs and recognise that they
cannot interfere in police inquiries. “They
have kept to strategy and financing,” says
Rick Muir of the Police Foundation, a
think-tank. “They are not gung-ho, locking
people up.”
Two other problems have emerged. The
first concerns what they do. Tackling or-
ganised crime and “county lines” drug-
dealing—city kingpins sending go-be-
tweens to provincial users—requires na-
tional co-ordination. Getting 43 chief
constables to agree on a strategy was tricky
enough, grumbles a senior official. Adding
pccs makes it harder: “These people
couldn’t agree on what they’d had for
lunch.” Since they are meant to respond to
local demands, their priorities are often
parochial. There is no electoral incentive to
pool resources such as computer systems
and specialist surveillance units, points
out Harvey Redgrave of Crest Advisory, a
criminal-justice consultancy.
The second problem is who they are. Mr
Cameron billed the role as a “big job for a
big local figure”. He wanted bosses and
“pioneers of all sorts” to become pccs, as
well as politicians. Yet only three of the
current crop of 40 stood as independents.
Most of the rest are stalwarts of Britain’s
two dominant political parties. A salary
ranging from £65,000 ($84,000) to
£100,000 makes for a plum job for those
who have spent years delivering party leaf-
lets. The plans they have produced are
stuffed with “value-free rhetorical cliches”
not analysis of local crime patterns, says a
study by John McDaniel of Wolverhampton
University. Voters do not appear to find
them inspiring. Only 27% of eligible elec-
tors cast a ballot in 2016.
The government has promised more
power for pccs. That might help. Elected
mayors in London and Manchester act as
pccs, but with more power to co-ordinate
initiatives with councils and local health
services. A handful of powerful regional
mayors might be more effective than dif-
fuse pccs. And a beefier role might attract a
higher calibre of candidate. Two of the cur-
rent big-city mayors are former ministers;
a third is an ex-boss of John Lewis, a big re-
tailer. The answer to a flawed reform may
be further reform. 7
M
arch is whenthe clocks change in
the northern hemisphere. Spring is
sprung, tulip bulbs put forth shoots and
garden proprietors think about hiring.
Anders Holch Povlsen, a Danish clothing
billionaire, is advertising for a head
gardener for his Aldourie Estate along
the shores of Loch Ness in Scotland. The
successful candidate will be in charge of
200 hectares of parkland, including a
formal castle garden, an arboretum and a
recently planted walled garden with
glasshouses. Closing date: March 30th.
“It’s all flat-out at the moment,” says
Mark Read, a recruitment adviser at
English Country Gardeners, “with estate
owners realising that spring is around
the corner.”
Gardening has never been so popular.
The Royal Horticultural Society wel-
comed its 500,000th member in 2019,
the same year that saw the number of
jobbing gardeners in Britain grow by
more than 5% to 157,000, according to
Statista, a business data platform. But
finding the right head gardener is a del-
icate business. One proprietress likens it
to trying to recruit a lover and hairdress-
er in one, calling both for deep profes-
sional acumen and exquisite fingers.
Many head gardeners are delicate flow-
ers—creative loners who are easily
bored. The best are inevitably already
employed, but poaching is deeply
frowned upon, especially within the
same county.
Robert and Nicky Wilson, the owners
of Jupiter Artland, a popular contempo-
rary sculpture park outside Edinburgh,
changed their job specification com-
pletely when they met Thomas Un-terdorfer, a gifted Austrian gardener who
trained at Kew and spent seven years
helping the Keswick family develop the
walks and herbaceous borders of their
Gloucestershire garden at Rockcliffe. The
Wilsons had advertised both for an estate
manager and a head gardener. But Mr
Unterdorfer knew he did not want an
office job, and he worried about losing
interest if all he had to do was to main-
tain an established garden. So the Wil-
sons created a new position for him:
senior head gardener in charge of all
Jupiter’s green spaces, which was a chal-
lenge on a different scale.
Their adaptability paid off. Mr Un-
terdorfer created a magnificent green
backdrop to the brightly coloured tiled
pool that the Wilsons had commissioned
from Joana Vasconcelos, a Portuguese
artist, which opened last July. Pruned in
undulating waves, the 3,000 Portuguese
laurels, beeches and boxwoods make an
impressive showcase to set off Ms Vas-
concelos’s spirited creation (pictured).
Mr Unterdorfer switched jobs for the
opportunity rather than for money, he
says, though it never pays to be tight if
you are trying to recruit a head gardener.
One British entrepreneur who wanted to
transform his country seat in the Surrey
Hills into an oasis of niwaki—Japanese
cloud pruning—thought he might econo-
mise last year by proposing that his head
gardener should do a job-share with a
neighbouring family. Within months the
man was off, lured by the offer of
£50,000 a year and his own cottage. “I’m
just too cheap, I now realise,” wails the
entrepreneur, who is looking for a new
head gardener.Green gods
Looking for gardenersFinding a great gardener can be a challenge