October Election

Apparently Gordon Brown really is considering an October election.

If this is the case, it will have to be called in the next few weeks (maybe at the Labour Conference?), it must also mean that Gordon Brown must have some cash in the bag ready for it. I wonder if it will have come from his contacts in the Smith Institute. I hope so, it will be excellent ammunition for the Conservatives, it is the sort of thing that really could turn opinion during an election.

Fenland - 39 Conservatives, 1 Independent - A Lib Dem and Labour Free Zone

See here for a political map of Fenland.

Before the election we were a Lib Dem free zone, after the election, despite an intense campaign from the Lib Dems, we are a Labour and Lib Dem free zone.

I suspect we are the only Authority in the country in this situation.

A worse service at greater cost - New Labour's epitaph

This article from the EDP is a pretty spot-on analysis of the poor state our electoral system has got into under New Labour.

Their obsession with making it easier for people to vote means that they have ignored one of the basic principles of democracy - the need to avoid fraud so that we have confidence in the outcomes.

The one thing that is not mentioned in that article is that as well as compromising electoral integrity, New Labour have massively increased the amount it costs to run elections. Those who are involved this year will vouch for that.

"A worse service at greater cost" should be the epitaph on the New Labour tombstone.