Tories were outraged on Wednesday when Gordon Brown accused Cameron of misleading people about the Scottish elections. Now Gordon Brown’s been proved right, David Cameron should apologise.
The independent Canadian election expert who wrote the report has written to the election commission to say
“I did not suggest in the report that specific actions were taken by ministers to advance their own party’s interests but that all political parties were concerned with the potential political advantage that could be gained by certain decisions, such as on the question of ballot paper design, and this delayed key decisions.”
“When I examined the reasons for this I concluded that, while responsibility for taking these decisions lay with the Scotland Office and the Scottish Executive, all political parties in Scotland were involved in the long-running debates, contributed to the final decisions and shared in the failure to prioritise the interests of the voter.”
Which contrasts rather dramatincally with what David Cameron alleged on Wednesday
“The independent report on the Scottish elections was published yesterday. It found that the Labour Government put party interest before voters’ interests in conducting those elections. Will the Prime Minister now offer his own personal apology for the unacceptable conduct of Ministers?”
Let’s check the tape again, to see if the foot was on the line.
“I did not suggest in the report that specific actions were taken by ministers to advance their own party’s interests”
Seems clear enough to me. Cameron was wrong. I’m sure he’ll apologise for misleading the house.
The lesson from this is that none of the political parties should be casting the first stone. Tories supported the the measure for a single ballot paper for the constituency and regional list because they thought it would reduce thecance of conservative voters using their regional list vote to express support for a minor party- for example a Christian party. The Liberal democrats wanted STV for local elections on the same day. the SNP wanted to be called “Alex Salmond for first minister” on the regional list.
All of these desires were “partisan” interests. The same’s true for us. Labour supported the single ballot paper, didn’t want STV but acceded to the Lib Dems and couldn’t stop “Alex Salmond”, (neither on the ballot paper or from being elected).
We’ve all got lessons to learn and we al need to realise that trust is built when we allow an independent body to control that process, no matter how frustrating it can be (trust me on this, all political parties loathe the electoral commission, regarding them as a bunch of busybodies who don’t understand politics. We’re no better at understanding the importance of regulation than any multinational).
What’s utterly pointless though is when the leader of the opposition supports a process when it will give him partisan advatage, then pretends that he is pure and that only his opponents acted from partisan interests. That’s breathtaking hypocrisy. After all, the Conservative’s didn’t oppose the singleballot paper, and copied the “Alex Salmond” party description in the Ealing by-election. Neither of those are signs of an overly purist apporach to electoral matters. Beams and motes, Mr Cameron, Beams and motes.
4 Comments
October 26, 2007 at 8:02 pm
Thanks for this Hopi.
Been on the road all day, read the papers, had the car radio on, but not heard a dickie bird about this story today…(in contract to wednesday when Cameron’s attack was all over the media like a rash…)
still, i’m sure they’ll all carry the apology in full…
watching.
October 28, 2007 at 12:12 pm
I don’t know. Gould wrote:
“What is characteristic of 2007 was a notable level of party self interest evident in Ministerial decision-making (especially in regard to the timing and method of counts and the design of ballot papers).”
It’s not really an unreasonable interpretation of the above – is it? – that there was, er, a notable level of party self-interest evident in Ministerial decision-making.
One can only speculate as to why Gould felt compelled to “clarify” that he did not mean what, on a simple reading of his report, he plainly did mean.
After all, this government isn’t really into the whole speaking-truth-to-power thing…
October 28, 2007 at 12:34 pm
I’m sure, of course, that you did not want to post partial and misleading extracts from Gould’s clarification (and yes what pressures did compell him to come out with a ‘clarification’ that has had the effect of weaking the credibility of his report?)
Gould did in fact restate in his ‘clarification’ that with regard to the decisions on the organisation of the election:
“responsibility for taking these decisions lay with the Scotland Office and the Scootish Executive”
He went on to say that all parties had a share of responsibility; but even in his ‘clarification’ he did not say the parties had an equal share. The Labour Party dominated in the run-up to the election in the Scotland Office, the Scottish Executive, the Scottish Paliament. Labour MP representation at Westminster and in Scottish Local Auhtorities.
The dogs in the Scottish street know about the shennanigans and advantage seeking that was being perpetrated by the-then overwhelmingly dominant political elite.
That Douglas Alexander has the nerve to now demand apologies of others for this great scandal at the heart of Scottish democracy for which he had primary responsibility… one can only hope that this is hubris before nemesis. You must remember Douglas Alexander? Included in his new Ministerial brief is advising third world countries on developing democracy – you couldn’t make it up!
October 28, 2007 at 2:32 pm
Bob, Ted,
Thanks for commenting, but afraid I have to completely disagree.
Cameron’s allegation was that the decisions taken were to specially benefit _Labour_. There’s not only no evidence for that (How would putting the two ballot papers on the same piece of paper do that?) but it’s ridiculous on it’s face- If the decisions were partisan, woudn’t the other parties have complained?
Of course they would, but they didn’t. In fact they supported the decisions ad the process was a four party one- for example Labour never wanted STV for local elections, but had to accept it from the LDs, neither did Labour want to allow the SNP to go under a different name for the regional list, but had to accept it.
Gould makes it clear that all parties share responsiblilty, but also makes clear that what was responsible was all parties self interest, not labour self interest. Cameron was wrong, and needs to apologise.