Tories accuse LibDems of By Election Dirty Tricks
We have long known that the Liberal Democrats plays fast and loose with democracy. Buying votes, postal ballot fraud, etc. But this little tit bit I picked up over on Ian Dale's Diary is a new one on me.
It appears that the Libdems have been accused of paying residents, through a corrupt prize draw system to display their vomit inducing posters. By all account they have been organising draws where there is £50 for a poster seen in a window and £250 when that poster is on a stake outside a home.
By all accounts they really splash the money around in the first week of a by-election and then word spreads rapidly as people demand LibDem posters to put up for a chance at the money. Totally illegal of course but since when have the Liberals ever worried about things like that.
Tory Vice Chairman in charge of campaigning Grant Shapps MP wrote last week to Lord Rennard, the LibDem by-election guru to ask him whether he had any knowledge of the practice.
I am sure that you will be as concerned as I was to hear about a practice whereby residents are offered cash incentives, via means of a prize draw, to display political posters during by-elections. This practice is of course illegal and the section of the relevant election offence reads as follows:
It is an illegal practice knowingly to make any payment, or contract for a payment to be made to an elector or a proxy for an elector on account of the exhibition of, or the use of any house, land, building or premises for the exhibition of, any address, bill, or notice for the purpose of promoting or procuring the election of a candidate at an election, unless it is the ordinary business of the elector or proxy as an advertising agent to exhibit for payment bills and advertisements and the payment or contract is made in the ordinary course of that business. The offence extends to payments or contracts before during or after an election. A person receiving a payment or being a party to such a contract, if he knew it to be in contravention of the statute, is also guilty of an illegal practice.
I intend to alert the relevant authorities to this practice and with the above in mind I would be grateful if you could confirm whether the Liberal Democrats have ever knowingly used such incentives during by-elections in either this or the previous Parliament.
I await your response.
Yours sincerely
Grant Shapps MP
So do we all Grant. So do we all.
You want an honest government? So do I. Support the British National Party in any and all elections. Vote BNP.
