In short it was perceived as "not being democratic" - my read is that the very fact that people are standing on the back of political parties, it risks turning the management of the police into overt politics and that is not good, not that policing is ever neutral of the government today, that would be a naive aspiration.
I only know of one of ours and that is a true-blue.....I heard at the hunt meet this past weekend "vote for him, he supports hunting" - and that to me is exactly the point about the politicisation of the police. So I won't be voting.
It's more of this PC twaddle - laughable but actually quite disturbing.