A convicted fraudster has once again been questioned by police over illegal voting claims.
David Ginley, who is hoping to be re-elected for the Conservatives in the Warley ward in next month’s Calderdale Council elections, has been arrested by police on suspicion of election fraud.
As reported in yesterday’s Courier, the 60-year-old and a 39-year-old man were questioned on Monday.
The 39-year-old is believed to be Mohammed Rashid, who is standing for the Conservatives in the Park ward.
Both have been released on police bail pending further inquiries.
Iain Dale quite rightly has queried why the prospect of Labour finishing third in the popular share of the vote isn’t a big story being talked about in the media.
But actually Iain is too kind to Labour.
Because the voting abyss Labour is teetering on the edge of is more than simply coming third. More than simply doing worse than Michael Foot. It’s on the verge of its worst share of the vote since 1918.
In 1983 Labour scored 28.3% and in 1918 it was 22.2%. (Both of these are figures for Great Britain, i.e. excluding Northern Ireland, as that’s the …
Posters matter in election campaigns, because they show people that a party has plenty of support. Knowing that a party has lots of support in turn encourages other people to vote for that party. So last Sunday’s Daily View was a poster special with one you can print off and put in your window.
“suffer after the election” because of her candidacy and added it is “now open season for everyone to have a knock at you and The Larches will suffer…“After the call I felt he was trying to get me to pull out and not stand for the council. I
Luton Liberal Democrats arrived to start their days campaigning to discover the frontage of their offices being vandalised. The offices had been sprayed with ‘Voting Shirk’ and plastered with postcards advertising the fundamentalist group’s website and message.
Qurban Hussain, Liberal Democrat Parliamentary Candidate, commented on the incident: ‘I have always said that extremists and fundamentalists have no place in politics or religion. We are disappointed that our offices have been targeted but this is just another indicator that things are going well for us here in Luton South. We are very clearly rattling cages.’
I’m a bit confused by your article about hung Parliaments in the Telegraph, where you wrote:
The last time a British election failed to produce a decisive result, in February, 1974, the FTSE All Share Index – a broad measure of the stock market – fell nearly 15pc in a month and ended the year more than 50pc below where it began.
The piece even has a graph starting in January 1974 and going through to late 1974.
Why does this leave me confused? Well, I’m sure on most financial matters you know far more than me. But even I know …
As pointed out in the comments, there is in fact a second Conservative running against John Redwood – Mark Ashwell, who has criticised John Redwood for being too right wing.
Sad news from Yorkshire: John Boakes, UKIP candidate for Thirsk & Malton, has died. This means the election will be delayed with polling now taking place on 27 May. During to the change in law following a similar tragedy in 2005, existing nominations roll forward but UKIP is permitted to nominate a new candidate.
I’ve often written about my scepticism of excited comments about 2010 being the first internet general election both because they miss how much at the organisational level has already been altered by the internet over the last two general elections and also because people looking at the internet’s impact on the external side of politics spend far too much time looking at the national scene when instead they should be looking at the local scene.
After the first TV debate you could already imagine the election post mortems headlined, “First internet election? Or first TV election?” Old-fashioned TV has …
Yesterday The Independent profiles the contest in Liverpool Wavertree between Colin Eldridge and Luciana Berger:
Crash landing for Labour candidate parachuted into Liverpool
When London-born Luciana Berger was chosen as the Labour candidate to fight the seat of Liverpool Wavertree three months ago she was tipped as a rising star with a future ministerial career ahead of her. Unfortunately it was not long before things started to go horribly wrong.
There had already been rumblings of discontent within the local party at the imposition of an all-female shortlist for this eminently retainable heartland seat. Then the Labour leadership in London was accused
YouGov have come in for a fair amount of flack online following last night’s instant debate poll for The Sun. Some of the criticism has been wrong or misplaced. Yes, one of their senior figures has Labour roots. But then one has Conservative roots and other staff support the Liberal Democrats. They’ve even done polling for the Lib Dems in the past.
But – and it’s an important but – that was not the whole story. In amongst all the chaff were claims that YouGov’s polling started before the debate had actually finished and that it was collecting people’s verdicts on …
Overall the pattern of the debate polls is one of a close result: 3 polls make Clegg the winner, 2 make Cameron the winner. The political impact is more contentious: edging it in the majority of polls would, in any other circumstances be a triumph for Clegg – but was it enough given what happened one week before? Similarly, failing to clearly win the debate in other circumstances would be a disaster for Cameron (remember all those polls and betting odds in advance of the debates saying Cameron would win?). But after last week, perhaps this was good enough?
Early signs are that as many as 500,000 – 750,000 people rushed to join the electoral register just before the registration deadline earlier this week – hopefully reflecting a surge in interest in politics, particularly from younger people.
The evidence though is rather thin at the moment, so a simple request – check with your council how many people have joined the register in the latest rolling register update and post the answer below.
(If you’re an agent or campaign manager, remember that you can ask to get these names and addresses – which if you are doing any addressed election material …
Unlock Democracy, the UK’s leading campaign for democracy, rights and freedoms, today unveils its new report which looks at how committed British political parties are to democratic reform.
The report, ‘A Vote for Democracy?‘ looks at the parties’ policies in five key areas: fair, free and honest elections; rights, freedoms and a written constitution; stronger parliament and accountable government; bringing power closer to the people and a culture of informed political interest and responsibility.
Allocating each party a score out of 100, the total scores are:
Liberal Democrats: 81
Green Party: 80.5
SNP: 57
Conservative Party: 48.5
Labour Party: 48
Plaid Cymru: 39.5
UK …
As we get ready for tonight’s second TV debate, it’s worth taking a moment to reflect on one of the reasons why Nick Clegg did so well in the first debate and also why the party was poised in a happy and strong position such that Nick’s debate victory boosted the party to first place in many polls. That reason? Chris Huhne.
Not only did Chris Huhne play the role of Gordon Brown in the debate preparations, but the very fact that a closely defeated leadership candidate was used in such a role reflects on how closely and how well Nick …
Perhaps not the fashionable thing to say these days, but Parliament deserves credit for getting one legal change right: altering the law a while back so that the deadline for joining the electoral register falls during a general election campaign rather than before it.
This time that means the deadline for registration fell on Tuesday – after several days of heavy media coverage about the election and after the surge in interest from younger people courtesy of the first TV debate.
Imagine all the frustrations if people have been enthused and then found the law meant it was too late to sort …
If you need something a bit more substantial – either to persuade a person to switch their votes or to help get them engaged – don’t forget the excellent “Why vote Liberal Democrat?” book that is available (book review and online purchase links here).
Alternatively, if you’re involved in organising your local campaign and getting lots of new offers of help, why not get a copy or two to give away in prize draws open to anyone who comes out canvassing for the first time?
In the run-up to the 2005 general election, there was some excitement as a rolling poll commissioned by ITV from Populus showed the Conservatives slipping to a result even worse than 1997. However, there was a sharp (5 point) recovery in the final pre-election day poll from Populus, which was a normal non-rolling poll.
Picking over the polling after the election, the explanation looked to be one aberrant sample on one day but which, due to the workings of a rolling poll, ‘infected’ the poll results over a longer period of time. It was only with the final pre-election poll, based …
This story comes to us from the London Borough of Haringey.
David Lammy, Labour MP for Tottenham, told a hustings meeting that he has done 10,000 pieces of casework in ten years.
Lynne Featherstone, Lib Dem MP for Hornsey & Wood Green, meanwhile has helped over 28,000 people in less than ten years.
(As many people have made more than one piece of casework done for them, that means the rate of work is more than three times David Lammy’s – and in less time and including a period before Lynne became an MP, i.e. before she got an office and Parliamentary …
Until yesterday, Havering Council was telling residents that it would reject any rolling registration applications that were not made on the council’s own form – despite the fact that such rejections would be a breach of the law. In a bizarre twist, it also meant that Havering Council was telling people who had filled in an electoral registration form via the Electoral Commission’s heavily advertised website, AboutMyVote.co.uk, that those applications were invalid.
Election campaigns throw up all sorts of challenges, but one of the most pleasant and surprising this time round in many areas is the number of people offering to help. That is happening both locally and nationally, with the party’s main website, www.libdems.org.uk, seeing a 300% increase in the number of offers of help on the Thursday-Sunday of the first TV debate compared to the same period a week before.
Quite what you do with all these offers of help – many of which are coming in from wards and constituencies that were not in any targeting plan – is a nice conundrum to have. Two basic principles apply:
Don’t abandon targeting – big surges of votes in 1974 and 1983 did not turn into many extra seats. The party has since learned how to work the system far better – and the party’s targeting plans for this election were already massively more ambitious than ever before.
But similarly don’t think that the way to get a new person involved is to say, “Thanks very much, but we don’t really want your help round here.”
Squaring off both those points successfully is not always easy but it’s why we have had such success in Hornsey & Wood Green over the years – going from 0 councillors, 0 local deliverers and third place at the general election to 23 councillors, hundreds of deliverers and an MP. Ruthless targeting in council elections – but also a keen eye to building up the wider strength.
So here are my tips on what to do with all these offers of help:
Window posters: a strong poster display helps feed the most important message – if people think other people are going to vote Liberal Democrat, they are much more likely to do so themselves. Getting a small public commitment to supporting the party from someone is also a good way of upping the odds of them becoming a long-term helper.
Be social: some people like helping out on their own – whether it’s sat at home writing a cheque or out on the streets delivering on their own. But for most people saying, “Go away and do something on your own” ain’t the right move. There are two TV debates coming up: why not get people together in front of a TV to watch?
Help elsewhere from right here: “Go away and help somewhere else” also ain’t a great message. But you can get people together for a session of phone canvassing somewhere nice and local – even if the phone calls are to a target seat elsewhere. Again, this has the benefit of being more social and fun – and most people prefer the chance to learn together how to do something new rather than being sent instructions on what to do on their own at home.
Get writing to the local and regional papers: the day to day logistics of campaigning often involve too little politics and policy to really appeal to people who have been enthused by national coverage of the party. Encouraging people to write to the papers is a good way of combining publicity with thinking and talking about policy. As an added bonus, newspapers often cover both weaker areas and target seats – so you can help both in one go without having to choose.
Take new people to go and see how a full on campaign works: seeing a full campaign at work can be tremendous fun, invigorating and educational. But don’t say “Please drive 30 miles away to go and find some fun with other people”; do say “Would you like to join us on our campaign trip on Saturday afternoon?”.
Encourage people to join the party: it gives them more of a say in the future of politics and it gives the party greater strength in the long term.
Share content online: rating Nick Clegg’s videos on YouTube, tweeting links to Vince Cable’s stories on the party website, saving to Facebook a positive newspaper story and more – these are all easy to do, can be done from anywhere and help the party’s message reach a wider audience, again in both stronger and weaker areas.
Of course, that’s an understandable thing for the media to do: regulator publishes numbers, you report them.
However, the numbers are misleading for two reasons:
They are (only) for donations to parties. As I’ve previously pointed out, donations made direct to candidates during the election campaign period are excluded from these figures.
The figures only include donations which are large enough to have to be reported to the Electoral Commission. Small donations are excluded from the
Look, I can understand a good TV performance boosting the Lib Dems in the polls.
I can just about understand having several young kids running up to me in the street, looking admiringly at the stakeboard poster and one saying, “Are you voting for that Nick Clegg? I like him!”
At a stretch I can even understand The Sun running a positive story about the Liberal Democrats.
But Guido producing a wholly positive film about Nick Clegg? That volcanic ash must be hallucogenic.
Hence Eric Pickles telling the media the weekend that there was no Lib Dem surge detectable in the Conservative Party’s canvassing and Boris Johnson writing in the Telegraph that Nick Clegg was “by far the worst”. Yeah right.
Go right! Go right!
Hence William Hague warning of a European Union inspired catastrophe if the Lib Dems win. Guess he’s not on talking terms with Eric Pickles or Boris Johnson, because how could the Lib Dems win if they are both right? But also I guess he’s hoping we’ve all forgotten the number of …
From a senior campaign source: “We’re talking here about offering our services to the Labour Party as we’re the ones with the experience of fighting general elections when you’re in third.”
The more serious point is that many people, even inside the Liberal Democrats, have consistently under-estimated just how large scale the party’s targeting efforts are for this general election. It would be wrong of me to publicise information I know from working for the party until last year, but it’s safe to say that (a) it’s massively bigger than previous targeting efforts – so much so that during this Parliament …
Suzanne Fletcher I agree we need to raise taxes for this and other spending needed.
However not VAT, that impacts on poorer people on a lot of things they have to spend money o...
Geoff Reid I’m with Gordon Lishman on this one but nice to be in broad agreement with Simon!...
Christopher Haigh Surely it's NATO that should organise the defence spending of its member nations, not individual countries doing its own thing....
Gordon Lishman We broadly agree for once. I regard it as “stopped clock syndrome” - right once in 24 hours!
However, I prefer income tax....
Simon McGrath @David Raw - you think we should not change our minds about something after 16 years ?...
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Conference booked
Suzanne Fletcher 
Geoff Reid 
Christopher Haigh 
Gordon Lishman 
Simon McGrath 