My hon. Friend has made his worries about what happened in Bradford clear to the House, and rightly so. It is easy for us to get so involved in the detail of these matters—which we should do, of course—that we forget the deep shock and outrage that the public felt when all those allegations of fraud in the system, particularly postal vote fraud, first came to light. People were deeply shocked that such a level of fraud could exist in our democracy. Indeed, the judge in the Birmingham case was outraged at what he saw as the complacency of Ministers. It is easy to get into the Whitehall way of thinking, without realising that people want to feel that we have a top-class democracy, a democracy to be proud of. After all, we go round lecturing other countries about it—
Electoral Administration Bill
Proceeding contribution from
Oliver Heald
(Conservative)
in the House of Commons on Wednesday, 11 January 2006.
It occurred during Debate on bills on Electoral Administration Bill 2005-06.
Type
Proceeding contribution
Reference
441 c326 
Session
2005-06
Chamber / Committee
House of Commons chamber
Subjects
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2024-04-21 20:41:05 +0100
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