The local newspaper reports:

‘Mayor-Elect’, Councillor Robin Parker, will be investigated after trying to use his influence as a Councillor to get Jean Ashworth sacked from her job at Rochdale Infirmary. The complaint to the Standards Board related to a series of emails that Councillor Parker sent to health bosses demanding that Councillor Ashworth be disciplined.

For more on this story, see my previous posting.

Interesting information to be found if you read the latest proxy votes list for Thursday’s Winchester Council elections. Since the news broke that a Conservative activist in Whiteley ward, John Hall, has been charged by the police with false registration information, false proxy voting application and making a false instrument, the council has issued the final list of proxy votes for Thursday’s elections.

Comparing this list with the previous list shows that six proxy votes in the Whiteley ward are no more. Of the six, two had John Hall down as the person to cast their vote. Another two had his …

I blogged yesterday about a couple of serious holes in the argument in John Rentoul’s piece for The Independent, in which he argued that the party’s fortunes had not increased under Nick Clegg’s leadership. Ironic really then that the newspaper carrying an opinion poll tomorrow showing the Liberal Democrats up three points to their highest rating with that pollster for a year should be … The Independent. Ho hum.

Nick Clegg used a speech to the 4Children conference today to attack Labour’s record on childcare and early years education:

The sad truth is that, in Britain today, opportunity is in short supply for too many children.

A child’s chances in life are more determined by his parents’ income than anywhere else in the developed world. Social mobility is grinding to a halt. Inequality is rising…

It is absolutely vital that our approach is not prescriptive. Because every family is different.
And it is clear that when services are designed to make life easy for government, or local councils, instead of families, far too many people fall through the gaps.

Ed Davey thinks not.

This time it’s Hampshire where the police are taking a close interest in the election tactics of Conservative Party members:

POLICE have charged a political activist with attempting to rig one of Thursday’s local elections.

John Hall, who has been campaigning for the Conservatives in Whiteley, is accused of applying for a proxy vote without the person’s permission.

The fiercely-contested Winchester City Council ward was won by the Tories at the last election by tightest of margins, beating the Liberal Democrats by just 19 votes…

Hall has been charged with false registration information, false proxy voting application and making a false instrument.

UPDATE: Liz …

More news on the Swansea nominations paper story – the police have made an arrest:

TORY ARRESTED IN FRAUD ROW
The man at the centre of an election fraud row has been arrested.Tory Norman Whitlock has been accused of forging signatures on the nomination forms of Uplands Conservative candidate Simon Bright.