It has not been a good week for Kent's police commissioner Ann Barnes, after a spectacular public relations car crash over the appointment and then swift resignation of her 17-year-old youth tsar, Paris Brown.

There are arguments on both sides about the events but no-one can deny that the normally sure-footed commissioner has had a setback.

After a day or so basking in generally positive coverage of her appointment, her team was forced on the defensive in the face of a media maelstrom that raised questions about her judgement and the perceived failings of the recruitment process.

Worse, it had triggered two separate police inquiries and a request for a report from a cross-party group of councillors.

And on top of that, suggestions of a degree of tension between the force and the commissioner.

The entrails of this grisly saga have been well and truly poured over. One issue it has vividly illustrated is that commissioners are acting in quite different ways to police authorities.

The government argued that the concept of directly-elected police chiefs was better than a system in which anonymous, largely unknown and appointed police authorities had responsibility for strategic governance. Hard to argue with.

The trouble is that anyone elected to public office has, in the back of their minds, just what the voters will think of them when they next go to the ballot box.

And it is this that in some senses has arguably been at the root of the commissioner's difficulties this week. The idea of a youth commissioner appeared to be a good one and certainly played well - at last initially - with the media and public.

Had it worked out, you can bet safely that the initiative would have featured heavily in Ann Barnes' election publicity in 2016.

The question is: would a police authority - for all their faults - have championed the idea? Kent to my knowledge never did and neither has it been something the chief constable has ever exhorted.

But elected politicians know they are accountable to voters and are always seeking initiatives that will mark them out as distinctive.

Unfortunately, they run the risk - as in this case - of being accused of gimmicks or PR stunts in the cause of enhancing their own reputation.

Strategic governance and keeping an eye on the money is what commissioners are really about but it is not awfully sexy.

Which is why we are seeing some of these more colourful ideas being promoted. It actually adds to the public's confusion over their role - it is already evident that many misunderstand the powers of commissioners, equating them with sheriffs riding into town and clearing out the hoodlums. 

And unfortunately, when you court publicity, it can sometimes backfire.

Never go out to lunch - it should be tattoo'd on the eyelids of every reporter. That's the hour when stories have a nasty habit of breaking.

Yesterday your scribe broke with tradition, and went to lunch only to learn on his return that Medway's newest councillor had resigned less than two weeks after being elected in a costly, sometimes acrimonious, by-election.

It could be he went too soon.

David Craggs - private school headmaster, special constable, Army Cadet officer and (for the briefest of periods) a politician and elected member for the River ward in Chatham - was told by Kent Police he couldn't be a councillor and a special constable. He chose the uniformed role he had held for 17 years.

That has sparked a major crisis in the council, and a row that could find the controlling Conservative party's biggest constituency taking their close friends, the police, to the High Court amid accusations of bullying.

It couldn't have happened at a worse moment.

The Chief Executive and Returning Officer, Neil Davies, was on holiday.

So, too, was the council's legal chief and monitoring officer, Deborah Upton.

It left the Children's director, Rose Collinson, in charge, and without much backup to advise her.

Half an hour after Cllr Craggs resigned, the council was announcing another by-election could be (though not necessarily will be) called within 35 days.

But was it bullying?

As in all walks of life, there are people with political interests in police, newspapers, the courts, sport .... everywhere.

Kent Police seem to have a rule that says you can't do both. As a member of the constabulary you chose - and it doesn't matter whether you are a backroom boy or a multi-pipped senior officer.

The irony is that the Conservative Party has announced they want local police chiefs to be elected - just as they are in the Good Ol' Yew Ess of Aye. It will make them more accountable. It will also make them political - whether or not chief constables and personnel chiefs are happy with it or not.

***

The cost of the debacle that has once again left River Ward without a councillor is likely to top £10,000.

There were printing costs, election announcements, hiring polling stations, the election count team, the council's staffing costs....

Then there was the outlay incurred by the politicians. They published newsletters, banged on doors, bought rosettes, wore out shoes.... and, don't forget, there were six parties involved.

There were election fees for each of the candidates - most of whom failed to get into treble figures.

Now it all has to happen again if two River ward residents say they are unhappy only being served by one councillors, the erstwhile UKIP founder and leadership contender, Craig Mackinlay.

It is conceivable Medway's Blue Boys could end up sueing Kent's Boys in Blue, while they, in turn, are pursued by Lib, Lab, and assorted others wanting their wasted outlay refunded.

Chris Buckwell, Membership Secretary for the local Tory association, ex council Cabinet member and now an immigration judge, was spitting blood, and calling down the heavens on the heads of the cops' personnel team. Among his more restrained observations was an accusation of bullying.

Certainly, they have successfully managed to convince a democratically elected councillor to chose between the voters and plodding the beat.

The question is: should the police interfere with democratic rights and decisions?

It will need a judge to sort that out.

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Thank heavens for the planning committee.

They saw the sense of a planning application to provide a play area in one of Medway's more under-provided wards.

The advantages (apart from keeping the kids off the street) were that it was well away from any neighbours, it met the needs of the community, and it had the backing of police and council.

The trouble was councillors were advised to refuse it. Because it was too far away from any neighbours, and the council and the police were against it.

That's right - while the local bobbies and the youth team had found an ideal place for a kick around - and the money, the planners and the Maidstone plods had a different viewpoint.

As one councillor said last night: if the local kids were going to be anti-social there are plenty of other places to do it.

So it went through.

The neighbourhood will get a play area - because councillors used common sense. Unlike some..