Scrutiny process "ripped up" on Leicestershire's fire authority

Mike Charlesworth, the leader of the Liberal Democrat group on Leicestershire's fire authority, has written a letter of complaint about the way the authority is being run to its monitoring officer.

The complaint, reports the Leicester Mercury, follows the departure of the county's chief fire officer after just over a year in the job with an £84,000 pay off.

This move was not discussed with the Lib Dem group, which holds the balance of power with the authority. It would probably have remained secret if the Mercury had not revealed it.

There is a widespread perception that the fire authority has been carved up between Sir Peter Soulsby, the Labour mayor of Leicester, and Nick Rushton, the Conservative leader of the county council.

As Mike Charlesworth told the Mercury:

Rushton and Soulsby are running what ought to be a democratic body as a two man show. 

"We appreciate there will be employment issues involved with Richard Chandler leaving, but as a courtesy at the very least we should have been told about this so we could raise any concerns. 

"There are so many questions about this that need answering. 

"We don't know what settlement package has been agreed with the chief fire officer, whether it is justified. 

"They've just ripped up the scrutiny process. 

"They are making major decisions effecting public services as if it was some private club."

The paper also quotes Rushton's reply, which does not seem overconcerned with democratic oversight of the authority's decisions..

Meanwhile the people of Leicestershire wait avidly for news of the police investigation into the hacking of Nick Rushton's Twitter account.

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Latest on alleged Tory overspending at the 2015 general election

Michael Crick's latest report was broadcast on Friday.

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Leicestershire Tory MP says David Cameron is finished as leader

Rather generously calling him "a senior Conservative MP," the Telegraph quotes Andrew Bridgen from North West Leicestershire:

"David Cameron has placed himself front and centre of a disingenuous Remain campaign, setting himself at odds with half of the Parliamentary Party and 70 per cent of our members and activists on the most important issue facing our Country in a generation, 

"Whatever the result, I believe his position will be untenable."

A reminder that, since 1990, civil war has been the Conservative Party's natural state. David Cameron's early years as leader now look like a glorious exception.

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Six of the Best 597

The Conservative Party's advice to agents in marginal seats at the last election contradicted official Electoral Commission advice, suggests Mark Pack.

Alwyn Turner remembers Michael Gove as a young Scotsman on the make: "No one could have behaved more naturally than he in a staffroom that looked as though it were unchanged since 1954."

Does Little Sheffield show small economics can revive a post-industrial city? asks Gareth Roberts.

Anthony Gottlieb on the rise and rise in the reputation of the philosopher David Hume.

Simon Kuper examines the reasons for England's World Cup victory in 1966: "Perhaps the men of 1966 really were a generation of giants who put all future English footballers to shame. Or perhaps what happened is simply that the fittest, luckiest and most sober team of that summer squeaked a narrow victory in a three-week tournament at home."

"When police Superintendent Newhouse (Laurence Olivier) tries to find material witnesses for the case, he comes up short. Even stranger: none of the Lake’s are mentioned on the passenger list for the ship they arrived from America on the week before...." The Retro Set watches Bunny Lake is Missing, an minor but intriguing British film from 1965.

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Discovering Gideon's Way

I have a new weakness - or rather I have revived an old one.

The Gideon stories were a series of police procedurals written, under the pen name J.J. Maric, by the extraordinarily prolific John Creasey between 1955 and 1976.

For some reason I took to them while I was at school even though they were already dating markedly by then.

Now I have discovered that the whole of the Gideon's Way TV series has been uploaded to Youtube. There were 26 of them made for ITV and broadcast in 1965 and 1966.

John Gregson took the title role, playing him as a world-weary liberal who sometimes had to reign in his keener subordinates - a sort of prototype for Morse and Wexford.

Gideon's family feature regularly. Political trivia fans may like to note that his younger son was played by Giles Watling, who was the unsuccessful Conservative candidate against Ukip's Douglas Carswell in the 2014 Clacton by-election.

One of the pleasures of Gideon's Way is spotting familiar actors in unfamiliar roles. I have watched only a few of the shows so far, but already I have seen Inspector Wexford masterminding a bullion robbery, Mrs Bridges from Upstairs Downstairs running a gang of pickpockets and fences, and Arthur Daley committing arson,

Then there are the pleasures of spotting actors on the way up.

This, for instance, is a young John Hurt on the run from prison. (You can see an even younger Hurt on this blog as an undergraduate in The Wild and the Willing.)

And this young man is now in the House of Lords. It's Michael Cashman, formerly of EastEnders and the European Parliament, in his first role. At this stage of his career his chief means of conveying emotion was hunching his shoulders.

Above all, though, there are the pleasures of the location footage. This is London before turbocapitalism and moral relativism. It's a city of quiet suburbs and decaying warehouses where the villains are cornered and the police inevitably round them up.

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Electoral Commission takes Tories to High Court over election spending scandal

From the Mirror website today:

The Electoral Commission are taking the Tories to the High Court to force them to reveal documents detailing the spending on Battle Buses ahead of the 2015 general election. 

The Commission have already asked the Tories twice for the documents, but they have only provided "limited" disclosure. 

Political parties have a legal obligation to provide full spending disclosures to the Commission on request.

Later...

Tory Party yields up Election expenses documents only after Electoral Ciommission said they were asking High Courst to force their release

— Jon Snow (@jonsnowC4) May 12, 2016

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Torbay Lib Dems raise questions over Alison Hernandez

From the Herald Express:

Torbay Lib Dems have lodged a question at Wednesday's full council meeting over the conduct of the new Devon and Cornwall Police Commissioner - former Torbay councillor - Alison Hernandez ...

Lib Dem leader Steve Darling wants to ask Conservative councillor Robert Excell: 

"As Torbay Councils representative on the Devon and Cornwall Police and Crime Panel, do you think it is right that Alison Hernandez remains in post whilst being investigated by the police for criminal offences, while a serving officer in the police would be suspended during such an investigation?"

However, the paper said the Lib Dems have been told that the question arrived too late to be considered for today's meeting.

You can watch Alison Hernandez's encounter with Michael Crick above.

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Police investigating alleged 'electoral malpractice' in Leicestershire PCC poll

On Thursday, helped by my second vote, Labour's Willy Bach was elected as the new police and crime commissioner for Leicestershire.

After the Liberal Democrat and Ukip candidates had been eliminated, he beat his Conservative opponent by 78,188 votes to 58,305.

This represented quite a turnaround on the result in 2012. Then the Conservative Clive Loader (who stood down at this election) won at the second stage by 64,661 votes to Labour's 51,835.

Over the weekend there was gossip about irregularities in the postal votes cast. Today's Leicester Mercury quotes a spokeswoman for Leicestershire police:

"We have received an allegation of electoral malpractice which is believed to have taken place during the Police and Crime Commissioner elections. 

"Inquiries are ongoing into the report and we are liaising with the Electoral Commission and the local authority."

The Mercury says this allegation has been made by the Ukip agent, but adds:

An East Midlands Conservative Party spokesman declined to comment but a number of activists left Friday's election count talking about 'anomalies'.

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Six of the Best 595

"A Crosby-ified Toryism can eke out victories against average opponents, but it is no guide to winning well or winning at a time when the capitalist system is being questioned; when Thatcherite and Reaganite orthodoxies are being questioned or when, in such places as Scotland (and now London), the Conservative brand is weak and needs rebuilding." Tim Montgomerie on the defeat of Zac Goldsmith.

Lenore Skenazy condemns the use of parents' fears for their children as a marketing tool.

Tony Broadbent rediscovers a murder that scandalised postwar London: the shooting of Alec de Antiquis in 1947.

"As you visit the Polling Station today you may be struck by the rather anachronistic posters which identify those buildings designated as such. Some local authorities have held huge stocks of these paper banners for much of the 20th century, and in some parts of the country those on display today may have been printed many years before you were born." Bob Richardson examines election day typography.

Hope you enjoy this article by Katy Waldman on why we omit initial pronouns.

Kelefa Sanneh explores the benign ruthlessness of Paul Simon.

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Why Labour did surprisingly well in the South of England yesterday

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One of the features of yesterday's local elections in England was that Labour managed to hold on to what the Telegraph calls "key southern outposts like Exeter, Southampton, Crawley and Slough".

Earlier today I heard someone on radio or the television suggest that this was because Jeremy Corbyn's views go down better with university-educated Southern voters than they do with more traditional working-class voters.

And I thought of the Richmond and Barnes constituency in the 1983 general election.

This was a knife-edge contest between the Conservatives and the Liberal Party (or Liberal Alliance, as we called ourselves in those days).

I was to find myself arriving on a doorstep 10 minutes before the polls closed, just as a Conservative activist arrived there too. We compared notes and found we were chasing the same voter.

The Liberals were eventually to lose by 74 votes and I am convinced we would have won with a more dynamic candidate.

On the last weekend of the contest the young activists (this was a long time ago) were sent out to call on the Labour supporters identified in our canvass and ask them to consider a tactical vote for the Liberals.

This approach received two distinct reactions. Working class voters were generally happy to consider the idea, even if they had a Labour posters in their window.

Middle-class Labour voters, typically teachers, however, were often offended to be asked. You had to vote for what you believed, they told me, even if your candidate had no chance of winning.

It is this second group of voters, I suspect, that Jeremy Corbyn appeals to. Which means that he may well be surprisingly successful in maintaining his party's Southern outposts.

But it also means that he may struggle to resist the appeal of Ukip to working-class Labour voters.

Incidentally, the Labour candidate I was urging people not to support was Keith Vaz. I think I did the right thing.

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Andrew Neil makes Grant Shapps squirm on Conservative election expenses

"You knew nothing about this?" asks @afneil about Tory election spending claims

"No" says @grantshapps #bbcdp https://t.co/1yXp8VOYkC

— DailySunday Politics (@daily_politics) May 4, 2016

From today's Daily Politics.

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Latest Michael Crick report on 2015 Conservative elections expenses

Note that the Conservative police and crime commissioner for Devon and Cornwall was the party's election agent in one of the seats now under scrutiny.

Which could prove embarrassing for all concerned if she wins on Thursday.

Note too her reluctance to answer questions on the matter.

You can find earlier Michael Crick reports on this blog.

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Electoral Commission asks for more time to consider Conservative election expenses

From the Channel 4 News website today:

The elections watchdog has asked for more time to pursue possible criminal prosecutions regarding Tory election spending, as a summit is called to consider the evidence revealed by Channel 4 News. 

Following months of investigations by Channel 4 News, the Electoral Commission has requested an extension to the time limit available to pursue possible criminal prosecutions regarding Conservative Party campaign spending returns. 

Bob Posner, Director of Party and Election Finance & Legal Counsel at the Electoral Commission said, “The police and the CPS both have the power to apply to the Courts to extend the time limit on bringing criminal prosecutions for electoral offences to allow for full investigations to take place. We have requested that they consider doing this.” 

Representatives of the Electoral Commission and the Crown Prosecution Service will hold also hold a summit with a number of police forces to discuss the Conservative Party’s election expenses next week.

Meanwhile the Cornish Guardian reports:

A Devon and Cornwall Police spokesman said that following complaints from "a small number" of members of the public, officers had launched an inquiry into allegations that Mr Mann's declared election expenses did not portray an accurate picture of his spending. 

Mr Mann has vigorously denied any wrong-doing but has conceded that he did not know details of how some of the Conservative Party campaigning in his constituency had been accounted for. 

The national party repeatedly sent campaigners to North Cornwall in a touring "Battle Bus." 

At issue is whether the travel and accommodation expenses for those campaigners should have been declared locally, or as part of a national campaign spend

If the Electoral Commission, as it should, is taking this affair seriously, there is much more chance of it coming to something substantial than there would be if it were left to isolated local campaigners.

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"Oakeshottian conservatives prefer the devil they know; idealists, rationalists and managerialists think they can improve upon it." Chris Dillow returns to one of his favourite themes: the trouble with the Conservatives is that they are no longer Conservative.

Anoosh Chakelian meets Piers Corbyn, brother of the Labour leader.

"Our National Parks are dominated by sheep farms and grouse or deer estates, leaving almost all our hills bare. Nature is protected in isolated reserves which provide important refuges for biodiversity. But these refuges are not joined up, and so are very fragile in the long-term." Helen Meech makes the case for rewilding.

St Peter's Seminary, Cardross, is a celebrated modernist ruin on the Firth of Clyde. John Grindrod has photographs of it from the 1960s: "What's immediately apparent is how beautiful the building is. The arches, the windows, the concrete, the strange forms and shadows."

Richly Evocative introduces us to the elusive, slippery territory that is Ashley Vale in, St Werburghs, Bristol.

Taylor Parkes celebrates The Professionals.

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Did the rise of the SNP really spook Lib Dem voters in England?

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Last July I began a post like this:

A myth is growing up about the Liberal Democrat debacle at the last general election. It holds that we lost almost all of our seats because the Conservatives ruthlessly targeted them and won over former Liberal Democrat voters. 

So they did, but there is little sign that our lost voters went to the Conservatives instead.

My assurance was based on my reading of an article by Seth Thévoz and Lewis Baston on the Social Liberal Forum site.

Here are a couple of the paragraphs I quoted back in July:

The Conservative-facing seats showed a remarkably consistent pattern; the main factor at play was Lib Dem collapse rather than Conservative recovery. In each of the 27 seats lost to the Conservatives, the collapse in Lib Dem votes was sizably larger than any increase in Tory votes, by a factor of anything up to 29.

And:

This means that although the Lib Dem position in many Tory-facing seats is dire following a collapse of the party’s vote, the Conservative position is not necessarily ‘safe’ or stable; the Conservatives have won many of these seats on relatively small popular votes, and there still exists in these constituencies a reasonably large non-Conservative vote which could potentially be mobilised around a clear anti-Conservative candidate with a more appealing pitch than that of the 2015 Lib Dem campaign. 

Nor is the Conservative vote appreciably growing much in such areas. In seats like Lewes, Portsmouth South, St Ives, Sutton and Cheam, and Torbay, the increase in Conservative votes was negligible, and Lib Dem defeat can be laid down entirely to so much of the Lib Dem vote having vanished.

I thought of this article when I read the review of David Laws' new book Coalition that Nick Thornsby has written for Liberal Democrat Voice.

Or, to be more accurate, when I read the comments on that review.

In one of them Nick himself says:

The conclusion he [Laws] comes to is that the coalition was probably worst for the party in terms of 2015 results, but that whatever route we took was always going to result in a fairly significant loss of seats, either in a later election in 2010, or in 2014/5. 

The particularly big factor in that is Scotland, and the SNP’s rise there would almost certainly been as drastic whatever we did, which had the double-edged effect of denying us seats in Scotland and scaring our voters in the south-west into voting Tory.

In reply Glenn says:

The Lib Dem vote was not scared by the SNP or Miliband or The Greens or frankly even UKIP. Many more former Lib Dem voters voted for these parties than for the Conservatives. The vote simply split enough in enough seats to give Cameron an edge. This is a government formed on a small majority, not a landslide victory or masses of popular support.

And, Adrian Sanders - the defeated Liberal Democrat MP in Torbay - agrees:

“our voters in the south-west into voting Tory.” No, no, no, this is not what happened. Firstly there was no great swing to the Tories – 500 votes in my seat while I lost over 7,000. Our voters mostly stayed loyal. It was tactical voters who deserted us for Ukip, Labour and the Greens, not the Tories.

This debate matters, because our analysis of what went wrong at the last election must be central to our attempts at recovery.

Are we trying to soothe people who voted Conservative last time and praying for something to change in Scotland? Or are we trying to reassemble the coalition of anti-Conservatives that returned us in these seats between 1997 and 2015?

My feeling, backed by the original article by Thévoz and Baston, is that we should adopt the latter approach,

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Michael Crick and Andrew Neil on Conservative election expenses

"Something has to be done by the beginning of June" @MichaelLCrick tells @afneil on possible #battlebus prosecutions https://t.co/qmwyu9R6Kz

— DailySunday Politics (@daily_politics) April 21, 2016

Following the new revelations on Channel 4 News last night, Michael Crick appeared on today's Daily Politics.

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Undeclared Conservative spending in Liberal Democrat seats

This Michael Crick report, giving the latest revelations in the growing scandal over Conservative spending at the last election, was broadcast by Channel 4 News earlier this evening.

Read more on the Channel 4 website.

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Why #PanamaLeaks may damage David Cameron and the Tories

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"I thought I was running for the leadership of the Conservative party, not some demented Marxist sect," fumed Douglas Hurd in 1990.

That was when he found his Etonian background being held against him in the Conservative leadership election that followed the defenestration of Margaret Thatcher.

Sure enough, he lost out to the Brixton boy John Major.

Fast forward to 2008 when, in admonishing Nick Clegg for an insensitive remark on pensions, I wrote:

Just because Tony Blair and David Cameron have made it look easy to be a public school type in modern Britain and not rub people up the wrong way does not mean that it is easy. Be yourself, Nick, but do be aware of the effect your attitude can have on other people.

Maybe things were changing by then, because in 2010 I observed:

Being "posh" was, until a year or two ago, just about the worst sin imaginable in British society. In as far as "posh" was used as a synonym for "educated" this was a pernicious development. 

It represented a foolish attempt to keep Labour's working-class roots, despite that fact that many of the people using this style of arguing were pretty posh themselves.

All this is a prologue to saying you should read John Rentoul on the Independent site:

The biggest setback of their first government, the cut in the top rate of income tax, damaged them because it trashed the rhetoric of being “all in it together” and reinforced the image of the Conservatives as the party of the rich. At the time, I wrote that, if Cameron lost the 2015 election, the 2012 Budget would have been when it happened. 

That is what makes Cameron’s victory last year all the more remarkable: that he won the grudging votes of people on low incomes who thought he had no idea what their lives were like and yet who still trusted him more than the leader of the people’s party. It is a tribute to Cameron’s skill that he could win with the handbrake of poshness on.

I have seen nothing that suggests anything illegal on the part of the Cameron family. And I suspect that the sort of people who might conceivably vote Conservative at the next election will tend to approve of doing all you can to pass your wealth on to your children.

But the Panama leaks affair may damage the Cameron and the Conservatives in two ways.

First, it reminds us just how damned rich he is. The WebCameron was and his talk of his "Dad" is an attempt to make him sound just like one more father of a middle-class family. The truth is different.

Second, it is a reminder that the idea you will be secure if you "work hard and do the right thing"is not true. You need to come from a family where two or three generations have worked hard and done the right thing - and enjoyed reasonable luck - to be secure. The Conservatives' emphasis on family breakdown in their definition of poverty recognised this truth.

I hope Cameron will ride out this storm: he represents our best chance of winning the referendum campaign and keeping Britain in the European Union.

But I suspect the Conservatives would be wise to choose a successor to him who has not been to Eton.

However, that decision is in the hands of Conservative members. They are not wise and they love Boris Johnson.

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Lord Bonkers' Diary: Liam Fox? My dear, I screamed!

We join the old boy as he waits from his flight back from the states.

Liam Fox? My dear, I screamed!

So here I sit in the VIP departure lounge at JFK, fighting off all attempts to put ice in my Auld Johnston. Before they call the flight to Oakham International, let me share with you my hopes for the months ahead in Britain.

First, the Conservative Party. Cameron has made that the fatal error of announcing that he will go before the next election, with the result that the his potential successors have been running wild. Let me list them…

George Osborne, whose political philosophy does not extend beyond the demand that he should have all the sweets and have them now.

Theresa May, who reminds me of a Matron I once employed at the Home for Well-Behaved Orphans. Whilst Terribly Efficient, she was unwilling to take the broad view on bedtimes and muddy knees providing the first XI won its fixtures and her charges showed promise at committee room theory and practice.

Boris Johnson, who wears a Donald Trump fright wig.

I also heard Dr Liam Fox refuse to rule himself out as a future Tory leader. My dear, I screamed!

Lord Bonkers was Liberal MP for Rutland South West, 1906-10

Earlier this week in Lord Bonkers' Diary...

Do you know New Rutland?

My old Friend Rising Star

The New Rutland Primaries

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Conservative council puts up tax bill by over 400 per cent

The memo about Britain having overspent on its credit card has clearly not reached Desborough in Northamptonshire.

There the Conservative-run town council has voted to increase its portion of the council tax bill by more than 400 per cent.

Defending the decision, the council's chairman Cllr Mike Tebbutt told the Northamptonshire Telegraph:

"I've had a few complaints passed on to me by the council clerk and they have all been responded to explaining our intentions. 

"The rise is absolutely justified. We are going to provide many of the things that people have wanted to see happen in Desborough. 

"From information passed to the electorate we are committed to a number of things, including improving the town centre, sports facilities and provision of a new skate park."

I have a certain sympathy for this decision. If ever a town gave the visitor the impression that it needs some money spent on it, that town is Desborough.

And this is how local democracy is supposed to work. If Tory councillors have misjudged the mood in the town then the people of Desborough are free to vote them out at the next election.

But Council Tax rates are now so controlled from the centre that it is only town councils that can take radical action like this.

Not everyone agrees with the council's decision.

Step forward Mick Scrimshaw of Kettering Labour Party:

No other council would even be allowed to do this but as Town councils do not have to abide by the same rules as other councils and they were able to push this through without a referendum and without proper consultation with their electorate. 

In my opinion it shows a complete disregard for democracy and also shows a spectacular lack of competence and imagination. I have n doubt they want to spend this extra money on worthwhile things (although I don’t know) but simply to raise council taxes in this way without looking at other ways of raising finance is simplistic and crass.

So welcome to the topsy-turvy world of Desborough Town Council where the Conservatives hugely increase taxes to pay for better services and Labour demands continued austerity.

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