Fixed elections and political policing

Two damning pieces of news this morning.

The first comes from Erith and Thamesmead, where the already controversial Labour selection process has just taken a turn for the sinister. The BBC reports:

A London Labour spokesman said: “It was discovered that the seal on a ballot box containing previously received ballot papers for the selection of Labour’s parliamentary candidate for Erith and Thamesmead was broken.

“In order to maintain the integrity of the process, [Saturday’s] hustings meeting has been immediately postponed and a new date will be fixed.”

The candidates include Georgia Gould, the 22-year-old daughter of Lord Gould, a key aide to Tony Blair during his time as prime minister.

Even insiders are worried things have got out of hand. John Austin, the sitting Labour MP who is retiring, had already lodged a complaint with the party about alleged postal vote gathering among Gould’s supporters.

Meanwhile, the Times has a new and disturbing revelation about the Damian Green affair:

Police who arrested the Conservative frontbencher Damian Green trawled his private e-mails looking for information on Britain’s leading civil liberties campaigner.

Officers from Scotland Yard’s antiterror squad searched the computer seized from his parliamentary office using the key words “Shami Chakrabarti” – even though the Liberty director had nothing to do with the leaking of Home Office documents that prompted the investigation.

I wish I hadn’t used that “Is this really Britain?” headline so recently. Maybe  I should have made it part of a series.

Read more by or more about , or .
This entry was posted in News.
Advert

Post a Comment

Lib Dem Voice welcomes comments from everyone but we ask you to be polite, to be on topic and to be who you say you are. You can read our comments policy in full here. Please respect it and all readers of the site.

To have your photo next to your comment please signup your email address with Gravatar.

Your email is never published. Required fields are marked *

*
*
Please complete the name of this site, Liberal Democrat ...?

Advert

Recent Comments

  • Lin Macmillan
    Amanda, I am constantly amazed by all you do and achieve despite your caring responsibilities. It is a blot on our society that carers are so poorly recognised...
  • Steve J Smith
    Even Save The Children are against this. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S47oBPzphCw TechDirt did a very good piece on it too. There's no evidence that kids ar...
  • David Warren
    Great initiative. I have filled in the questionaire and would urge all other members to do so!...
  • John Barrett
    Until big tech companies are forced to remove dangerous content from their social media platforms children need to be protected, and one way to do that is to st...
  • Nonconformistradical
    " In fact, most rich people employed clever tax avoidance experts to create and find loopholes, and thereby dodge their tax bills." Isn't this justification ...