The police and crime commissioner who lost the first council tax referendum has said the regulations turned him into ‘little better than a Trappist monk'.

Bedfordshire's Olly Martins wanted to increase the amount collected by £4.5m to fund an extra 135 police officers and hit out at the ‘unfairness of the process,' which he said ‘dictated the question, and what limited information I was allowed to publish and by when'.