Kerry McCarthy and Gordon Brown - What a pair of duffers

Right, two stories in one article for you and both to do with postal ballots.

In the first bit of news, Kerry McCarthy, the Labour Parliamentary Candidate, who is seeking re-election in Bristol East, appears to have dropped the ball big time and could find herself in serious trouble with the Bristol Electoral Services as a result.

By all accounts, Kerry is a real Twitter freak and posted the above information about the count of postal ballot votes in East Bristol that is supposed to be strictly confidential.  The premature release of this information could affect the outcome of the constituency election and so is forbidden by law.  Too late to take down your Tweet now Kerry, the world and its dog knows now.  Then again I doubt if Gordon Brown will slap your wrist after his spectacular cock up.

What makes it even more amazing is that Kerry McCarthy was appointed by Gordon Brown to be the Labour Party's New Media Campaign spokesman and was dubbed the "Twitter Tsar".  Hilarious.  Especially when you consider this statement that she made at the time:

"There are risks online but there are also benefits - you can speak for yourself and get your views across over the longer term.

But good as it was to see that the BNP are showing well, what worries me is the extremely high number of postal votes for labour. 

This leads me nicely into the second part of the article about allegations of postal vote fraud in Derby and again involving Labour.  Oops just run out of time. Well time is tight so I guess you will just have to read the link but rest assured that Plod is on the case.

Chief Superintendent Andy Hough said the matter would be investigated. He added that he had received more than one report of irregularities with postal voting.

"We have received more than one complaint in Derby and we will be making some inquiries in relation to postal votes," he said.