This week, Hertfordshire’s new police commissioner, David Lloyd, settled down to work with the confidence that he commands an overwhelming democratic mandate.

The Conservative swept to power with the endorsement of around seven per cent of Hertfordshire residents eligible to vote. Awe inspiring.

I imagine in meetings he will be able to brush aside any opposition he meets by simply reminding senior police officers: “I am the will of the people”.

The turnout at last week’s police and crime commissioner elections in Hertfordshire was excruciatingly low at around 14 per cent. And there was a similarly atrocious picture across the country.

Yet I can understand why millions of people decided to give this election a miss.

When I arrived home last Thursday evening, I had my own scuffle with apathy.

Having stepped into the snug indoors from the cold, the temptation was just to settle down on the settee and find out which exotic animal appendage Nadine Dorries would be ingesting on I’m A Celeb... that night.

Instead, I reminded myself that voting is a precious right millions on the planet are denied and it would be an insult not to make the five minute walk to the polling station.

It was somewhat more of a struggle to convince my partner (who was blissfully unaware there was even an election on). Eventually I did manage to berate her off the sofa and out the door.

But halfway up Rickmansworth Road to Watford Grammar School for Boys, she looked like she was going to turn back when I informed her it was supplementary vote so she would have to vote twice.

She complained she did not have enough information to vote for one candidate, let alone pick a second. And her complaint was entirely justified.

The Coalition Government saw fit to deny parties standing in the commissioner elections the traditional mail shot. This meant even less information for voters already struggling for reasons to take part.

Not only that, but as this was the first such election, many people had no clue about who police commissioners are, or what power they will wield over a service as vital as the police.

In 2016, after commissioners have had three and a half years to tinker with police forces, I imagine voters may be more motivated.

As well as the utter lack of information for voters, I also heard a number of specious arguments about why people should not take part in the police elections.

One was that these elections would politicise the police. The police are already political. In Hertfordshire, the role that will now be done by Mr Lloyd was done by a panel of unelected volunteers and politicians, including Mr Lloyd.

To think that Hertfordshire Constabulary’s top brass were hitherto oblivious to the national and local political whims is somewhat naive.

At least now that shadowy process has been brought more into the light and the public given some democratic input.

Personally I found the dismal turnout for the election embarrassing. Embarrassing for Hertfordshire and for the UK as a whole.

In the same week that the vast majority of us failed to exercise our democratic rights, one billion people in China had their political leadership chosen for the next decade behind closed doors by an unaccountable elite.

Also in the same week, more people were butchered in Syria trying to dislodge a blood-soaked tyrant.

Maybe the next vote we hold should be on whether we continue to be an elective democracy at all. It may get a slightly more respectable turnout.