Who are the members of The Electoral Commission?
Who are the members of The Electoral Commission?
More often these days we see people we do not elect, are being placed in positions of power or patronage. These people owe their place on these boards set up by the government, to the government itself, they therefore cannot claim independence, yet they and their comities are presented as being independent of any interference, and therefore arbiters of good honest opinion.
We do not get to know how they reach their decisions or what they base those decisions on or what criteria they apply in reaching their conclusions but they are independent so why worry.
When their conclusions can award £100,000 of our money to a group that has no track record in the field, as they did with the Tory backed NESNO, ignoring a firmly established and widely backed group, against the advice of their own advisers, and in the process play a direct influence on the likely outcome in the governments favour, it is time to ask questions.
This is especially important as this particular Commission will be very much involved in the EU Constitution debate when it is called.
These series of referendum are being called to give government the power to change the way we are governed, to divide England into political regions, the fact that these regions are the same ones designated by the EU is apparently just mere chance, and the fact that initially these assemblies will have little power is not important, initially the EU Commission had little power. The argument that these regional parliaments will bring government closer to the people is nonsense as most of the powers they will initially have will come from the already existing local government and eventually the regions will be used by the EU to by pass the government in Westminster.
So we have a situation where the government has set up and are already operating regional governments throughout the country, without a mandate from the people. Now because the EU has said that these organisations should have an elected element always in the plan, the government wishes to hold elections to these assemblies. So to bestow credence to their plans the government calls a referendum, this is not to ask the people what they would like, but to ask them to vote for the governments plans.
In this case it is clear that the government is pushing for the one outcome, but in order to hide behind the cloak of a democratic mandate, they want this approved by the people. The government itself will be working to get a yes vote, and using our money to achieve their aims.
I would argue that the break up of Britain into regional areas, that will eventually become the local arm of the EU, is a national debate, and if this or any other government wish to create these local parliaments, and wish to have a mandate to do so, they should hold a national referendum and not attempt to cause a domino effect by picking off the areas one at a time.
Now the government will use the Electoral Commission to decide which groups will be selected as the official Yes and official No groups each side being awarded £100,000.
I personally am somewhat mystified as to why we need to jump through these particular hoops why allow the Government to set the agenda for debate and why allow an interested party the power to authorize its opponents in this way, democracy can go hang as far as these people are concerned.
In any event there is already a Yes group and that is the government, they have made clear that they want elections to these assemblies and the full force of government powers will be brought to bare on selling their proposal to the people, why then is there a need to pay for another group to run a parallel campaign to promote a yes vote?
When one reads in the paper that the Electoral Commission has done this or decided that, we do get the impression that “The Electoral; Commission†are an important, powerful body of independent judges, who have the interest of the people in mind when taking their judgements. But the Commission is made up of people so it depends entirely on who these people are as to their competence or otherwise to make far reaching decisions that will affect our futures.
Thanks to Neil Herron of the “North East No Campaign†for the following list from his web site
http://www.neilherron.blogspot.com/
Sam Younger as Chairman of the Electoral Commission
He has had a career spanning twenty years at the BBC, most recently as Managing Director of the BBC World Service from 1994 to 98. His father was a Labour MP and Minister in the Labour Government of 1945-51.
Sir Neil McIntosh CBE, Commissioner
He is the Convenor of the Scottish Council for Voluntary Organisations and was Chairman of the Commission on Local Government and the Scottish Parliament. He was formerly Chief Counting Officer for Scotland for the Scottish Parliament Referendum (September 1997). He joined the Strathclyde Region in 1992 as Chief Executive until it was disbanded in 1996; the Council was the largest local authority in the UK. Sir Neil was appointed a Deputy Lieutenant of Dumfriesshire in 1998 and received an Honorary Doctorate of Law from Glasgow Caledonian University in November 1999. He was awarded a Knighthood in June 2000.
Pamela Gordon, Commissioner
Pamela Gordon has spent 40yrs in local government service. She started work with the London County Council and then spent nearly twenty years with the Greater London Council. In 1985 she became Chief Executive and Town Clerk of the London Borough of Hackney, in 1989 she became Chief Executive of Sheffield City Council and in 1996 became the first woman President of the Society of Local Authority Chief Executives. After retiring from full-time employment in 1997 she undertook a range of consultancy assignments, mainly for the National Lottery Charities Board. She is Chairwoman of the Joseph Rowntree Foundation Advisory Group on Local Government from 1997 to 2001.
Glyn Mathias, Commissioner
Glynn Mathias has had a long career in journalism. He joined the South Wales Echo as a reporter in 1967, moved to BBC regional news in Southampton in 1970 and became a Correspondent with ITN in 1973. He worked for over twenty years with ITN, becoming Political Editor, Controller, Public affairs and Chief Political Correspondent. In 1994 he moved to BBC Wales as Political Editor until 1999, when he became Manager, Public Affairs for BBC Wales until 2000. He is a lecturer and writer.
Karamjit Singh CBE, Commissioner
Karamjit Singh is currently a Member of the Criminal Cases Review Commission. Previous appointments include membership of the Civil Service Commission, Judicial Studies Board, the Police Complaints Authority, the Parole Board and Employment Tribunals Panel. His career has also covered the Commission for Racial Equality and local government. He was Assistant County Clerk (Urban Policies) for Leicestershire County Council from 1984-87.
So there you have it, all have been government appointed at some stage, none of them have ever worked outside the public sector, two are from the BBC, one from the Commission for Racial Equality and one who was heavily involved in setting up the Scottish Parliament and one was Chairwoman of an organisation that is funding the Yes Campaign.( Joseph Rowntree Foundation funds the Yes Campaign)?
