Author: Londonbear

In a judgment issued today a judge (or more correctly, a Queen’s Counsel sitting as an election commissioner) has found six Labour Councillors from the Midlands city of Birmingham guilty of election fraud. The elections will now be re-run.

The judge had already commented that the system of allowing postal (absentee) votes meant that the system was open to fraud. This cannot be changed before the elections on 5 May but may cause problems for the government who have been pushing postal votes as a way of increasing turnout.

The systen was thought to favour Labour as higher turnouts generally do. Now we seem to have further evidence just why they seem so keen on it.
The case goes back to local Council elections in 2004 and concern two wards (local areas) which were both won by Labour. In one, Bordesley Green, a pro-Kashmiri independence party objected after a box of completed ballot papers appeared at the count under disputed circumstance. In Aston, the LibDems objected after it appears a large number of postal ballots had been diverted and filled in at a “votes factory” by people including the Labour candidates.

Richard Mawrey QC described the current system as !an open invitation to fraud”. Ballot papers are sent out with two envelopes and a declaration. The voter places the completed ballot in a smaller envelope and signs a declaration that they are the person on the electoral register. This has to be witnessed. The smaller envelope and the declaration are placed in a larger envelope and sent back to the Returning Officer by post. Alternatively they can be handed in up to the end of the election.

Further information and links at http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/west_midlands/4406575.stm
 

Margaret Thatcher’s son Sir Mark has been refused a visa to enter the USA to join his wife and children in Texas. The “Sir” is an inherited title from his father, given at the request of his mother whose body sometimes crawls into the House of Lords to join the ranks of the Tory undead.

Thatcher Junior plea bargained a suspended sentence and large fine in South Africa for his part in an abortive coup in Equatorial Guinea last year. That conviction led to this ban. Mark now plans to set up home “In Europe but not in the UK” with his wife. Their kids will remain at school in th USA.

Just like the time he got lost in the Sahara Dessert when a “rally driver”, Junior had to be bailed out by the Great White Handbag Swinger. She posted 2 million Rand ($334,000) bail for him prior to his trial.

Equatorial Guinea has been run by President Obiang since a 1979 coup when he siezed power from his uncle. There are widespread allegations of human rights abuses, political oppression and corruption. The US Sentate is investigating the bank accounts held by his faimily which contain hundreds of millions of dollars.

Although the President is fairly unpleasant, the coup seems to be intended as a sort of old fashioned colonial expedition with the plotters allegedly planning to set up a private fiefdom. Obiang alleges the coup was supported by mulitnationals and foreign governments.

Thatcher has had a mixed career but seems to have done a “Dubbya” and become rich despite a series of failed businesses. His wife has inherited money

In case you were wondering, yes it is about oil, the country has very large undeveloped reserves.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/4405755.stm