Three weeks from the referendum on the alternative vote, Dominic Browne reports on the extent to which the NO to AV campaign is funded and run by Tories.
In their publicity material they describes themselves as a “cross-party” campaign, concerned that changing the voting system”would undermine confidence in our electoral process…”; however, “NO to AV” receive 99 per cent of their declared donations from Tory donors, who have given a staggering £28 million to the Conservative party and a further £10.6m in loans.
Also for a campaign worried about public confidence in the electoral process, they show a remarkable lack of concern when it comes to the damage their donors have done to confidence in so many fields of public life.
To take a few examples:
Michael Spencer – Finance
City Index Limited, of which Spencer is a majority shareholder, was fined £490,000 by the Financial Services Authority in 2010. And according to the Daily Mail, Spencer’s firm “advised councils hit by Iceland collapse”.
John Nash – Health
Mr Nash is the owner of private healthcare provider Care UK. He donated
£21,000 to Andrew Lansley. The Times reported (£) he “would be well placed to benefit from a Conservative promise to make it easier for private providers to perform more NHS work”.
Andrew Cook – Industry
Mr Cook is a Sheffield-based businessman who lobbied Tory ministers to
scrap an £80m loan to Sheffield Forgemasters. That’s the same Sheffield Forgemasters the No campaign preposterously claim to support, and claim would be saved by a No vote.
Jon Wood – Justice System
Mr Wood was branded “unreliable”, and motivated only by “animus” by a High Court judge. As Left Foot Forward has previously reported, this is a man who donated £500,000 to the Tory party.
Lord Kirkham – Parliament
In 1996 Lord Kirkham’s knighthood was reportedly described by No2AV
patron John Prescott as “the crudest example yet of honours given for
financial services to the Tory party”.
Also, talking of services to the Tory party, John Prescott may be interested to know that the Labour No to AV campaign have hired William Norton as the campaign agent whose name is on all their election material as their “responsible person”; i.e. he is held accountable should any rules be broken.
Mr Norton is not only a Reddich Conservative councillor, but also the man who defeated Mr Prescott’s plans for a North East Regional Assembly in the referendum in 2004.
The above examples are but the tip of the iceberg in illustrating just how “cross party” the No2AV campaign really is.
• The AV referendum takes place in just under three weeks’ time, on Thursday, May 5th.
Correction:
The No campaign got in touch after this blog was posted to outline that William Norton is not the Labour No to AV’s campaign agent. They say,”He is on the website, because that was built by NO to AV – but on all Labour NO to AV literature Joan Ryan, former Vice Chair of the Labour Party, is the person responsible.” We are happy to correct the record. The substantive point of the article remains the same.
131 Responses to “NO to AV: A campaign of the Tories, by the Tories, for the Tories”
Matt W.B. Plummer
RT @bc_tmh: No surprises here. Vote #yes2av RT @CompassOffice: 99% of NOtoAV funding comes from Tory donors
http://bit.ly/f9vFkA #yesinmay
Aaron Hill
RT @leftfootfwd: NO to AV: A campaign of the Tories, by the Tories, for the Tories: http://bit.ly/fx6s8c writes @dbr1981 #Yes2AV @YesInMay
Adam Gray
Jonathan, if what you say is true about ERSL having “no financial interest whatsoever”, why does ERSL say:
“There is almost no aspect of our democracy ERSL’s services do not touch – their stationary and postal voting packs, poll cards and ballot papers are used in parliamentary, European and local elections. They have already been awarded to contract to administer the 2012 Mayoral election using electronic counting machines. So, should Britain decide to hold more complex elections as with the Alternative Voting system, ERSL could be well-placed to receive the contracts.”
Who’s lying – them or you?
George W. Potter
@9
Given that the government and the Electoral Commission have said that they do not plan to use voting machines of any kind for general elections under AV (a conclusion they reached after trials of voting machines a few years ago) then the only business ERSL could expect to receive under the new voting system would be providing ballot papers, pencils, ballot boxes and polling booths – exactly the same as they do now. They would not stand to make any more money from the change than they do at the moment.
Furthermore, ERSL is not the same as ERS – ERS is just a shareholder in ERSL. And, above all, the Electoral Commission has looked into the donations by ERS and has ruled that there is no conflict of interest.
Sir Moansalot
RT @leftfootfwd: NO to AV: A campaign of the Tories, by the Tories, for the Tories http://j.mp/f9vFkA