Tag Archives: angela browning

First four ‘political’ Electoral Commissioners appointed

Former Conservative MP Angela Browning, former Liberal Democrat MP David Howarth, former SNP MP and MSP George Reid and ex-Labour HQ staffer Roy Kennedy have been appointed as Electoral Commissioners by Parliament (see news release here).

These are the first ‘political’ appointments since the laws governing the Electoral Commission were changed to permit people with recent political activity to become commissioners.

Roy Kennedy’s appointment may cause some comment as he was the Labour Party’s Director of Compliance since 2005, a period during which there were many controversies over the Labour Party’s approach to finances. For example, there were no prosecutions over …

Posted in Election law and News | Also tagged , , and | 1 Comment

How much should an MP spend on a website?

I’m all for MPs spending money on websites* and, just because you can set something up for free in five minutes, that doesn’t mean an MP can’t sensibly spend a reasonable chunk of money on a website. Good MP websites contain a wealth of content, design and functionality for which it is reasonable to pay something.

But the news that Conservative MP Angela Browning’s spent £9,635 for a pretty basic website plus 30 months hosting/support does look very odd. From what I’ve seen, I can’t see how that price is justified: it is substantially more than a range of …

Posted in News | 9 Comments
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