By far the most shocking political story of the week concerns the surly and belated acknowledgement by Gordon Brown that he misled both Parliament and the Chilcot Inquiry on the issue of cuts to the Armed Forces. Giving evidence to the hearing into the Iraq war, the Prime Minister claimed that defence spending had risen in real terms every year since Labour was elected to power in 1997. However, this was untrue. In fact, there have been several years when defence spending has been cut. Disenfranchised: Many soldiers have no vote due to a complex registering system This sorry story gives a disturbing insight into the culture of deceit which has lain at the heart of New Labour. Consider the facts: we know that Brown very carefully prepared his evidence to the inquiry and was well aware that he would face probing questions about the defence budget. Furthermore, since the inquiry has comparable status to a court of law, he knew that as a witness his answers had to be truthful. And yet Gordon Brown told Chilcot that levels of defence spending had not fallen under Labour. Now, three weeks later and under pressure to admit the truth, he was forced to issue a most grudging correction, without a hint of an apology. The Prime Minister’s humiliating admission that he was wrong also casts a murky light on his wider relationship with the Armed Forces. As Chancellor, it is wellknown that he consistently starved our fighting men and women of money and equipment. But it is not only by short-changing our brave soldiers, sailors and air crews of material support that Brown has treated them with contempt. I can now reveal another shameful example of this attitude. Many of those in the Armed Forces (including those risking their lives on the frontline in Afghanistan) face the prospect of being unable to vote at the forthcoming General Election. This is a direct result of the Government’s cack-handed and thoughtless system which governs their voting rights. Under the Representation of the People Act 2000, armed forces personnel have a choice of putting their names on the electoral roll through the Services or as civilians. But if they take the former route, they must re-register every year rather than being able to register once for the whole of their military career. As a result of the requirement to sign annually, the number of service personnel registering fell from 139,000 to 21,000. Indeed, critics of the system have pointed out the bitter irony that while troops have been fighting to help give democracy to the people of Iraq and Afghanistan, they themselves have been unable to exercise similar rights. In order to try to highlight this scandal, the Conservative frontbench spokesman (and former SAS soldier) Andrew Robathan conducted a straw poll of British troops in Iraq in 2005 and found that not only were eight out of ten not registered to vote but they also did not have any idea of the rules. In fact, only a relatively small perwascentage of the Armed Forces voted in the 2005 General Election. Now, with a General Election barely seven weeks away, the same thing seems likely to happen again. Disgracefully, Labour ministers were warned that the law discriminated against servicemen and women. Douglas Young, of the British Armed Forces Federation, published a brilliant document called Silence In The Ranks, which revealed the scale of the problem. Then, in November 2005, the Tory MP Andrew Tyrie proposed that every member of Armed Forces should be given the automatic right to vote. However, the idea rejected by the Labour government, which made one concession: the law would be altered so servicemen would only have to register once every five years. This change was an improvement but failed to deal properly with the problem. This mess is compounded by the fact that even those fighting abroad who have a vote find the system very tricky. Under electoral law, the closing date for parliamentary candidates to put their names forward to fight a constituency is only 11 days before polling day. Next, postal ballot forms (with names of all the candidates) have to be printed — a process which normally takes up to three days. The ballots must then be flown, for example, to Afghanistan and distributed to the isolated Forward Operating Bases in areas such as Helmand Province where many of our troops are based. More from Peter Oborne... Only then can soldiers cast their vote, before the ballots are sent back to Britain in time to be counted. The Army Families Federation recently carried out an experiment to see how efficiently this postal ballot system worked for forces based in Germany. She explained her own experience. ‘When my husband and I were stationed in Germany, the postal vote arrived on time only once. We had to go to extraordinary lengths to vote. I wonder how many others would go to that trouble.’ To be fair to the Government, Justice Minister Michael Wills set up a ‘working party’ to examine the problem in January. But this was much too late — for with just two weeks before the election is due to be called, the group has yet to report its findings. The truth is that if Gordon Brown’s government had shown any real interest in making sure the rights of British troops were upheld, it would never have set up a working party so late in the day. Instead, right and proper voting entitlements and facilities would have been a priority many years earlier — just like in the American and Canadian armed forces. Instead, it now looks certain that, for the second General Election in a row, many of our fighting men and women will be denied the chance to vote. Most worryingly, this raises the very troubling question of whether Gordon Brown’s government’s failure to allow democratic representation to our Armed Forces is merely down to incompetence. Or is there some other more sinister reason? Could it be that New Labour’s electoral strategists cynically calculated that the majority of servicemen are more likely to be Tory voters — and have deliberately deprived them of the vote? It is impossible to say for sure. However, what can be stated with certainty is that as well as starving the Armed Forces of funds and sending men and women into battle with inadequate equipment, it has also denied many of them one of the most fundamental rights of citizenship. At the forthcoming election, a number of our bravest fighting men — many of them risking their lives to bring democracy to Afghanistan — will themselves be Disenfranchised. And for a nation such as Britain, with a glorious military history, that is a most terrible betrayal. I am no friend of Michael Ashcroft and believe that he has questions to answer over his role as a Tory donor. Yet there is one area of the current campaign being launched against him by the Labour Party where he deserves sympathy. On two occasions now, the Tory deputy chairman has been the victim of politically motivated leaks. The first happened ten years ago when a secret Foreign Office report into him was given to a Labour-supporting newspaper. Then, last week, a Cabinet Office document about Ashcroft was given to the BBC. The use of private information held by the state for political smears is a characteristic of totalitarian societies and it is deeply regrettable that, for a second time, Labour ministers have stooped to this kind of activity. Ordering the first of many pints, I noted a familiar face also propped up against the bar. It was Gerry Sutcliffe, the affable Sports Minister. Rarely I have ever seen a minister so innocently employed. He told me that he’d been at Cheltenham the previous day as well. Can I have his job please?Is there a sinister Labour plot to stop British troops voting in the election?
Soldiers on the frontline face the prospect of being unable to vote at the forthcoming General Election. This is a direct result of the Government’s cack-handed and thoughtless system which governs their voting rights
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-1259368/Is-sinister-Labour-plot-stop-British-troops-voting-election.html#ixzz0ilNtm36HLessons from the Stasi
Saturday, 20 March 2010
Last updated at 8:58 AM on 20th March 2010
Just after 11am on Wednesday morning, I strode manfully into the Guinness bar at the Cheltenham Festival of horse-racing.
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