by
Les May
TRANSPARENCY
INTERNATIONAL
recently published it’s global rankings on public sector
transparency. In
the past the UK has been in eighth position. Now we have
dropped
out of the top ten most transparent nations. This
fall suggests
that we should not be complacent in tackling misconduct in public
life.
Larger
issues such as the suspension from Parliament of Ulster MP Ian
Paisley for failing to declare two jaunts paid for by the Sri Lankan
government reach the national press and are quickly stamped upon.
These are not the major problem. It’s the complacency about the
‘drip, drip, drip’
of seemingly minor issues of misconduct which leads to increasing
distrust of institutions, officials and politicians, and
ultimately to a decline in standards in public life.
In
recent years Rochdale has had two issues of complacency with regard
to somewhat dodgy goings on at the ballot box. In
2016 a ‘marked register’ went missing under
mysterious
circumstances in the Spotland and Falinge ward. I
use the word ‘mysterious’
deliberately because no police investigation followed what might have
been deliberate theft after a council officer simply declared it
‘lost’. Other towns take matters like this seriously.
The
second was a Rochdale Councillor for
the same
ward who
admitted
improperly
soliciting
a postal vote and then using
it to vote
twice in the May 2018 local election.
Both
of these are serious offences. Again
the two
offences
were treated with complacency. Instead of looking at the seriousness
of the crime, which
he should have done,
Labour leader Allen Brett turned a blind eye to this and chose to
look only at the nature of the punishment received; an admission of
guilt, a police caution and
no jail sentence.
In
October 2018 Tory leader Ashley Dearnley raised this matter in a full
Council meeting. Unanimously
Labour
voted against the Dearnley motion, which is interesting. Now I
know
that not all Labour councillors
were so complacent as
Brett about this example of electoral fraud.
The
fact that the Labour vote was unanimous suggests to me that Labour
councillors were instructed
to vote in a particular way. That
such things do happen can be gleaned from the comment of the ex
Labour
councillor for Balderstone & Kirkholt who said,
‘I was being told how to vote, being threatened ...’
after resigning from Labour and joining the LibDems.
Allen
Brett may have been able to brush this piece of misconduct under the
carpet and keep his disgraced councillor onside in August 2018,
but it may yet end in tears for Labour.
Last
May the ward I live in came close to a serious upset for Labour.
Very unexpectedly the young Tory candidate came close to beating the
Labour incumbent. If he decides to stand again this year and chooses
to make an issue of Allen Brett’s
obvious willingness to support
a Councillor who admitted electoral fraud who
knows what might happen?
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