´óÏó´«Ã½

´óÏó´«Ã½ BLOGS - Newsnight: Michael Crick
« Previous | Main | Next »

An apology

Michael Crick | 14:58 UK time, Tuesday, 5 May 2009

Last Friday I failed to report a pretty big political story - and so did Newsnight. But then hardly any other media outlets reported it either, and David Cameron and his colleagues must have been pretty delighted.

At Reading Crown Court .

As I reported for Newsnight they had exploited the weaknesses in the new system of postal-votes-on-demand to register dozens of bogus voters in order to get elected a Conservative candidate Eshaq Khan. And Khan was duly elected to Slough Council, ousting a long-standing Labour mayor. The brains behind the fraud, Mahboob Khan, was jailed for four and a half years, which is thought to be the stiffest ever sentence for a British election fraud case. The candidate Eshaq Khan got three and a half years.

Four other men got sentences ranging from four months to three and half years - a total of nearly 14 years. If any other political case on the British mainland has resulted in total jail sentences of more than that in recent times I'd love to hear about it.

So why did the sentences get so little coverage?

The only national newspaper to report it, so far as I can tell, was on Saturday, though the and the did cover the story online.

In part, I think, it's the mood of the times, where the media dwells upon every misdemeanour by Gordon Brown and his Labour colleagues. Twelve years ago, when we were obsessed by Tory 'sleaze', of course, it would have been the other way round.

But then who am I to talk? I didn't report the Slough sentences last Friday either.

Comments

  • Comment number 1.

    Nobody at the ´óÏó´«Ã½ has said one single word about Baroness Udinn's little local difficulty eitherlead in the Sunday Times, even the Guardian was covering it by Sunday evening, so that shoots the anti-Labour thesis out of the water.
    ´óÏó´«Ã½= ZanuLabour Ministry of Truth.

  • Comment number 2.

    MULTICULTURALISM AT ITS FINEST (#1)

    I am no expert, but surely - apart from in Monty Python "'e won't 'aggle" films - if a queuing culture leaves an open goal for a haggling culture to exploit, are they not duty-bound to give us a metaphorical kicking? I think JJ might have an example or two of this phenomenon. Of course, the situation is reversed when it comes to superior Weapons of Crass Destruction. They fire up at our multi-million pound planes, bristling with obscene weaponry, and we bomb and rocket the proverbial out of them. To paraphrase Zimbardo; "given the upper hand, bloke will abuse bloke" - the more so if the other bloke is 'one of them'.

    Now for multicultural unemployment - can't wait!

  • Comment number 3.

    I thought you were about to apologise for failing to report Baroness Udinn's expenses claims.

    The election frauds carried out by the Slough six were known to me so someone must have reported it in the past week. There was no need to apologise though. You haven't reported any of the other electoral/postal vote frauds that have been carried out in the past eleven years so I don't think anyone expected you make an exception of this one.

  • Comment number 4.

    You'll make a good politician, Michael.

    You acknowledge an error of (omission), but you haven't said "sorry" and of course you haven't be involved "in any wrong doing". Perish the Thought.

    Now Baroness Udinn SHOULD say "sorry", and BEFORE she goes to prison.

    You receive expenses to cover a legitimate costs, that you run up in the course of your employment. No outlay, no entitlement to costs, even though there is a very generous scale of remuneration.

    The Baroness, and probably many more, a guilty of embezzlement and fraud, and being in the public eye must be dealt with, and SEEN to be dealt with severely.

  • Comment number 5.

    Oh dear.

    It was not hard to find the story elsewhere



  • Comment number 6.

    Shock horror, the news gathering is a sheep like thing!

  • Comment number 7.

    When I was young and learning things political I was told that postal votes were hard to get and very controlled. Later on as a ward chairman I found that to be just the case.

    Now they have been subject to fraud by all the main parties; Labour, Liberal and the Conservatives. Postal votes should return to being tightly controlled. The argument that they improve voter turnout is bogus. The only additional votes you get from lax postal voting are personations.

    To my mind the franchise is important and the new rules Prescott brought in just cheapened the franchise. it is a disgrace.

  • Comment number 8.

    Michael: I am accepting your apology on behalf of the ´óÏó´«Ã½ and the NewsNight Division regarding your not stated all of the information....

    ~Dennis Junior~

  • Comment number 9.

    From the article linked to...

    "Sloughs Labour party asked the High Court to scrutinise votes cast in the Central ward during the local elections in May 2007."

    Unfortunately, when people wanted to scrutinise the votes cast in a recent Scottish bi election (Glenrothes), the evidence went missing... how convenient.

    The bi election was an important one as it was next door to the PM's own constituency. Indeed he played a large part in the campaign - visiting a number of times.

    The result was a very big surprise.

    "NEWSNIGHT'S political editor Michael Crick was one of many pundits caught out by the Glenrothes by-election result. Last night he called an SNP victory by 1,000 votes less than two hours before the Labour win was announced."



    Did you report that Michael?

    Perhaps you should be doing a bit more detective work on that one - it was a little more than a local issue.

  • Comment number 10.

    remember the judge calling the uk electoral system one that would have "shamed a banana republic"? 20,000 'names were taken off the list in birmingham alone after an investigation.



    didn't even mugabe 'joke' that international observers should be sent to the uk?


    i was shocked to hear lawmakers reject calls [recommendation] to make the electoral system more robust because they say they prefer it based on the 'honour system'. How mad is that. Where do people think they are? And what century? Parliament really is a bubble of delusion isn't it.

    there won't be any improvement.





    etc

  • Comment number 11.

    You probably didn't report it because they are Muslims. Typical ´óÏó´«Ã½ bias, don't do anything to upset Muslims.

  • Comment number 12.

    The postal vote system certainly seems to have brought the worst out in the political classes. All of the major parties have been caught out trying to cheat the system and rightly the guilty parties should have the full weight of the law thrown at them.

    As things stand, I would cancel the current system with only those who cannot physically get to the polling station by way of a disability being able to register for a postal vote. I suppose that those people who will be on holiday or working abroad would also be exceptions -proof required. Polling stations are open long enough these days to ensure that the vast majority of the electorate will have a chance to vote.

  • Comment number 13.

    BRIBERY - SUBVERSION - DECEPTION - DIFFERENTIAL VOTE-VALUE

    All the above and more are used by political parties - when in a position to do so. What is a bit of postal-vote fiddling?

    Clear the Westminster swamp. Only evil-doers thrive in swamps.

  • Comment number 14.

    Yet again you show the pro Labour ´óÏó´«Ã½ bias in the way you now bring this up without any comment on the latest expenses scandal. This is what happens when you try to edit the news rather than doing a proper reporting job.

  • Comment number 15.

    #11 Murray
    This overtly biased post from Michael Crick ignores the fact that the postal voting system is routinely abused in quite a few areas with high asian populations. I can quote other examples of similar abuse where labour councillors have been the offenders - it is not a party political issue. Corruption is unforgivable on either side.

    I work with intelligent asian women whose postal votes are taken and the head of the family decides how to vote - I know this is cultural but the postal voting system takes away these women's right to a free vote.

    Postal votes should revert back to the infirm or those with mitigating circumstances - they should not be the norm. Many asian women are being dis-enfranchised by this system.

  • Comment number 16.

    I was annoyed enough about this post to bother to register. Everyone knows that if the surnames of these people had been Smith or St.John-Smythe there would be no apologies needed as it would be covered, to suggest that you were distracted by Labour's difficulties is simply a lie and that is the bigger error. To believe your story is to assume a large team of journalists on Newsnight don't know their job and they should be looking for other careers

  • Comment number 17.

    What about Baroness Uddin then Crick? Of course she's NOT a Tory is she?

  • Comment number 18.

    This comment was removed because the moderators found it broke the house rules. Explain.

  • Comment number 19.

    Postal Voting:

    Why doesn't anyone appear to be aware of how, in their present form, postal votes destroy one of the central tenets of British democracy: voting should be in secret?

    Every postal vote I have received has contained, on the reverse, either a serial number or bar-code, corresponding to not only my street or my residence, but me: the voter. I have compared the bar-codes on my ballot papers to those on the ballot papers of others registered to vote at my address and those on the papers of those who live next door and it is clear they represent the voter and not, simply, his/her address or street. How can this not be a national scandal?

    I'm aware of the need to use industrial printing technology to produce the volume of ballot papers and their corresponding explanatory notes and that the machines use bar-codes to track the printed-papers' movements around the machines, but it isn't beyond the wit of man to feed a stash of 'bar-code-free' ballot papers in to the machine, adding one to each voter's bundle of papers, and so preserve democracy. Otherwise, British 'postal' voting is more akin to voting in Zimbabwe than a western democracy. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised that, barring the stuffing of ballot boxes, Zimbabwean voting is more democratic.

    I've cancelled my 'postal' vote and returned to the conventional method of voting, although I still don't vote.

  • Comment number 20.

    It must be a co-incidence that your apology comes on the day the ´óÏó´«Ã½ catches up with the Baroness Uddin story. You must have balance, eh Michael? I hope the outcome of the Uddin investigation will be as balanced.

  • Comment number 21.

    I think the ´óÏó´«Ã½ is starting to loose its reputation as an unbiased, fair scource of news. Its unbelievable that a story as major as this was practically unreported on the ´óÏó´«Ã½, why is it that whenever expenses are reported its always Labour MPs who are targeted, do Tory MPs not claim expenses as well? If so then why in the name of fair and ballanced reporting are they not given equall coverage?
    Its amazing that with elections only weeks away that this story was buried, what is the point of public service broadcasting if its going to be as inefective as this?
    I think that the ´óÏó´«Ã½ is taking the place of the newspapers in as much as the papers have for years been used to steer the political agenda while the ´óÏó´«Ã½ has been able to remain aloof and impartial, but with falling paper sales the ´óÏó´«Ã½ is getting sucked into playing a role its not mandated for. So all you get are constant negative stories about the government of the day, whoever that is, and in 10 years time the whole thing starts again with the other lot being the butt of all the negative stuff.

  • Comment number 22.

    Perhaps the government hopes the whole postal vote issue will go away soon - along with the postal service.

  • Comment number 23.

    Today the Conservatives are in the spotlight.

    It will be interesting to see if, from stage left, followed by a bear, our hero returns...

    For balance.

  • Comment number 24.

    I think you owe us another apology, Michael, for your feeble interview of Stephen Fry. Of course he doesn't think it's important, a man of his intellect is more concerned about "important" things. This from a man who has spent 3 months in jail for credit card fraud, a fact that you uncannily forgot to raise with him !

Ìý

´óÏó´«Ã½ iD

´óÏó´«Ã½ navigation

´óÏó´«Ã½ © 2014 The ´óÏó´«Ã½ is not responsible for the content of external sites. Read more.

This page is best viewed in an up-to-date web browser with style sheets (CSS) enabled. While you will be able to view the content of this page in your current browser, you will not be able to get the full visual experience. Please consider upgrading your browser software or enabling style sheets (CSS) if you are able to do so.