Political Parties and Elections Bill

I am saying that there is a candidate who is, yes, getting some resources to contest a system that is weighted in favour of the incumbent. That is the point that I am making. I have been a Member of Parliament and many people in this Room have been parliamentary candidates. We know very well that the incumbent Member of Parliament gets many advantages in addition to the allowances. When you are the Member of Parliament you can go to places, you can be invited to factories, schools and hospitals, you have the opportunity through your advice surgery to meet the electorate and to serve them well, you have the opportunity to answer the 50 to 60 letters that you get per day and take up those cases, and you can use the media. Huge resources are deployed in that direction. I simply question the whole issue of what delivers fair elections. I noted the comment of the noble Lord, Lord Campbell-Savours, that the deepest pocket buys the seat. That is a very dangerous way of referring to the electorate. I offer this view. It is not my noble friend Lord Ashcroft who will win the election, brilliant though he is as a strategist; it is Gordon Brown’s staggering mismanagement of the economy that will actually cost the Labour Government the next election when it is called. That is the point that we need to bear in mind. The point was made previously that people spent large sums of money, such as the £90,000 which was spent on the posters to which the noble Baroness referred but which failed to win the election. The electorate have made up their mind, although their mind is influenced. The quality of the organisation and the communication is very important for getting out the vote in an election, but the electorate can see through these things.