The case was brought by 'Remain' on the grounds that the Electoral Commission had given the Leave campaign duff advice based on an inadequate understanding of the law of which they could also have taken advantage had they been given the same duff advice. You will recall that as a consequence of the Commission's misleading Leave and its general incompetence, it crowed like a cock when it itself judged Leave guilty of breaching the regulations and imposed a fine to equal that levied on the LibDems for their breaches.Well, you won't be surprised to learn that it's happened again. Guido has the story - and a copy of a legal letter that with blistering invective catalogues the EC's omissions, distortions and misrepresentations, from which this is just a small sample -
Reading the court's judgement one finds a litany of arse-covering, post hoc rationalisation, weasel reasoning and straw-clutching on the part of the Commission.
We cannot go on like this. It is high time that the EC is replaced by a body fit for purpose. My conclusion back in September applies equally to the Electoral Commission's current egregious failings -
A democracy needs an authoritative and trusted arbiter of the probity of democratic actions, an unbiased and expert authority vested with moral and legal trust and confidence. Simply, the present Electoral Commission has failed those criteria on every point. It is, as the court found, not fit for purpose as currently constituted and must be reformed. That means both the professional officers, and the appointed Commissioners - who fail utterly to represent the electorate as a whole.
Booker
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We must all mourn the departure of a journalist whose life and work has added immeasurably to the quality of our democracy. We need such people. Reading both the Telegraph Obit and Richard North's appreciation provides a rounded apologia.
11 comments:
Amen to your Booker lines. A sad loss of a truth telling journo. A rare thing today.
The EC is another strand of the establishment web which is there to decieve. There will be no change without a change of establishment.
That will require some kind of revolution.
Yes, the electoral commission is underpowered in law and terribly under-resourced. The result being that its staff are demoralised.
I surmise that like the CPS, judiciary and police it is also part of the Establishment - the real one, not the silly Farage fiction, and the one of which he is also a part.
If it were not then you really would hate it, I expect.
@Cheerful Edward
So "under-powered in law and terribly under-resourced" are the Remainers news euphemisms for the reality which is inefficient, incompetent, corrupt and blatantly biased.
Ed, it must take serious dedication to be as one eyed as you. What's your secret - spinach?
Sadly the idea of 'the great and good' providing a dispassionate view (in Commissions, QUANGOs, and the House of Lords, for example) has been corrupted by short term politicians wanting 'reliable' and partisan answers.
Why did Cameron's 'bonfire of the QUANGOs' come to nothing? Because it would have undermined his political support. Why did he not change their chairmen etc? Because whatever their political background they mostly thought the same way as he did. May, of course, was even less likely to upset the boat.
So, that's:
1) Leave the EU (resisted by the powers that be)
2) Depoliticize the Civil (resisted by the powers that be)
3) Reform the House of Lords (resisted by the powers that be)
4) Sort out the partiality of the QUANGOs and Commissions (resisted by the powers that be)
Good luck to the Prime Ministers (for it will take several) to this.
All oversight in this now-excuse-for-a-country under the Tories is bent, it seems. Here's another example.
Despite the big fines on Deloitte over the massive tagging fraud by Serco - but on the company, when the responsible should be jailed - Serco have just been given the contract for housing migrants.
That means that you and I will pay the fines through their fees, and the criminals will continue to live the high life.
Bent companies, auditors, regulators, and government.
Oh, just one typo, Raedwald: "Guido has the story".
"Guido has *a* story". There - sorted.
The Electoral Commission's volte-face with the Brexit Party on the 21st May this year was a blatant attempt to hobble the new challenger. Having cleared their funding a few days earlier one speech from Gordon Brown sent them straight back to Brexit Party HQ. Nothing came of it and that in no small part is due to the impeccable Richard Tice running the tightest political ship so far this century.
Steve
The police used to guarantee the ballot boxes delivery and thus its integrity, the count was strictly monitored.
Then bliar rode into town and Britain if we weren't fucked already was about to be totally fucked over by the EU auspices, one of his first jobs, install the crass inequity of the ECHR and then allowed the postal vote and inaugurated the EC.
As I've said elsewhere, Britain now gives its fellow passengers - banana republics a bad name. Cripes, NK next stop?
Ravenscar, the UK was one of the first signatories to ECHR, having written much of it.
HRA1998 just made if financially feasible for ordinary people to bring cases by having them heard here, in UK courts.
That has saved millions of people's company pensions, among much else.
"Why did Cameron's 'bonfire of the QUANGOs' come to nothing?"
It would mean more work and - more tellingly - more responsibility - to our woefully inept MPs
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