There have been interesting developments on the matter of Cllr Finnigan and his dodgy election.

It has made the Yorkshire Evening Post today and it transpires that former Councillor Stewart McArdle is involved in a petition to the High Court.

However, Cllr Finnigan has revealed that his defence is based on a ruling that being a Councillor is classed as work in the area based on a legal precedent. A quick sniff on’t interweb supports his case. (From NALC legal topic note 28:-)

A person is qualified under paragraph 5 (c) above for re-election if he is already a councillor. The Court of Appeal held in Parker v Yeo (1992) that being a councillor was “work” and that the work was carried on in the area where the councillor was an elected member.

However, a closer look at Parker vs Yeo reveals that it is not as simple as it first appears. The Mr Yeo in question had actually retired during the term of his office due to his employer ceasing trading two years before the election. It was decided in the Court of appeal that work could include councillor duties in the wider sense as he wasn’t actually working. (See section 2.03 of this document for more).

Cllr Finnigan is on much shakier ground than this as he has declared it as

c. my principal or only place of work during those 12 months has been in that
*county/district/London borough/county borough at (give address of place of work and, where
appropriate, name of employer):

Well, it obviously can’t be his only place of work as he was working at Cleckheaton Town Hall until earlier in the year. So, which one was his principal place of work? Was it full time employment? Did he get more money as a Councillor (indeed a member of the executive board as he has been since a subtle change in the rainbow alliance last year)?

Ask yourself a question. Why would someone want to be on a Council for somewhere you don’t actually live in, work in or own property in?

(Well, there is one obvious answer…)

Speaking of sticky wickets, this made me chuckle…

There has been a bit of trouble brewing about the recent re-election of Cllr Robert Finnegan to Morley North. There is a school of opinion on Facebook (Morley Folk & those from surrounding areas) that he probably wasn’t entitled to stand as a Councillor because he didn’t actually live, work or own property in Leeds during the qualifying period. He appears to live in Batley (in Kirklees, not Leeds), although he gave the address of another Councillor to be printed on the ballots; He appeared to work until recently in Cleckheaton Town Hall (again in Kirklees) although he declared that he worked in Morley as his qualifying condition.

Now Robert is a good Councillor, he works hard and is committed to the job, although his politics are way too statist for my liking (as are all of the Lib-Lab-Cons). So should we be bothered? Well yes, we should, because if he wasn’t entitled to stand and tried to get round it he is pulling the wool over people’s eyes and therefore no longer honourable. If it was an honest mistake, he should own up, although it would be human nature for him to spin it out somewhat for three weeks, after which point he can no longer be challenged in an election court. If he suddenly realised (say) six months ago that he thought he was entitled to stand and then suddenly found out he wasn’t, the noble thing would have been to hold his hands up and wait for the next round of elections (now two years away) whilst proposing another MBI colleague to stand.

This is my latest contribution to the Facebook discussion.

The only people able to disqualify a Councillor are an election court (the Petition route)- or the standards Board for England. The Standards Board won’t be interested- unless the Councillor gets prosecuted.

However, the Police will investigate accusations of corrupt or illegal practice related to elections and the penalties are severe.

It boils down to:

What did Cllr Finnigan put on the form in answer to this?

*c. my principal or only place of work during those 12 months has been in that
*county/district/London borough/county borough at (give address of place of work and, where
appropriate, name of employer):

Bearing in mind that he worked for Kirklees for 22 years until earlier in the year according to the local paper, perhaps he thinks that being a full time councillor is a job in itself and he has access to a Tardis. Sorry, that won’t wash, being a Councillor is a member of a club, not a paid employment. There are allowances but there is no employment protection!

The Representation of the People Act 1983 was amended in 2006 by the Electoral Administration Act to categorise knowingly giving false information as a corrupt practice.

“(1A) A person is guilty of a corrupt practice if, in the case of any relevant
election, he makes in any document in which he gives his consent to his
nomination as a candidate—
(a) a statement of his date of birth,
(b) a statement as to his qualification for being elected at that
election, or
(c) a statement that he is not a candidate at an election for any other
constituency the poll for which is to be held on the same day as
the poll at the election to which the consent relates,
which he knows to be false in any particular.
(1B) For the purposes of subsection (1A), a statement as to a candidate’s
qualification is a statement—
(a) that he is qualified for being elected,
(b) that he will be qualified for being elected, or
(c) that to the best of his knowledge and belief he is not disqualified
for being elected.”

On this basis, it is perfectly reasonable for someone to report it to the police who you would expect would be obliged to investigate the allegations that section 65A RPA 1983 have been contravened. So the petition is in fact a red herring, he could still be prosecuted, large fines, even chokey.

Ironically, this was apparently made a corrupt practice based on the actions of BNP Councillors claiming falsely that they lived in Wards when they didn’t.

In today’s Obtiser Finnegan suggests that BNP Councillor Beverley resigns after running a dirty campaign. This strikes me as the pot calling the kettle black…

Of course, if Cllr Finnigan is able to assure me (& the Facebook doubters) that there is no fire behind this smoke, then I will happily publish his comments (or paraphrase it). However, if it looks, walks and quacks like a duck then it isn’t a swan…

It was Robert himself who told me the following joke:

Q: How can you tell when a politician is lying?

A: You can see his lips move!

Well, the election count came and went without issue, apart from a small kerfuffle at the start when it transpired that some of the BNP counting agents were not on the list so they weren’t coming in. (We had three Constables as bouncers so the argument was short lived).

To recap the process, we handle the ballots three times. The first time, we empty a specific ballot box and count how many ballots are in it. As part of the process, we bundle them into fifties but don’t pay attention to the votes at this stage. Our particular group of five counters did four boxes between us and we got the count spot on for three of them. (We were one ballot short for the other but it showed up in the recount).

The counted ballot papers are all taken away and stored together until such time as all of the ballot boxes for the electoral Ward have been emptied.

Stage two is the sorting. We are all given heaps of ballots and we start matching them to candidates. There were five candidates (for one vacancy) so we created five heaps each. At regular intervals, the assistant polling officers would come round and thin out the heaps, placing them into a box for the named candidate.

The third stage is to actually count how many votes the candidates received. There were more than 7000 votes cast but we were given lower score candidates to count, whilst the rest of the table hammered away counting the big boys.

During the sorting stage the “spoilt” papers are found and assessed. (Spoilt pertains to an incomplete or incorrect vote of any kind.) Any dubious ones are queried with the returning officer who will generally have a pragmatic view. (Voters are supposed to put a cross to the extreme right of the ballot paper but ticks, circles around the numbers or even underlining the name are generally accepted provided it is clear that it only relates to one candidate). A couple of ballots I saw were blank, one had two crosses on (there was only one vacancy) and some offered opinions on the candidates. I saw the word pervert a couple of times, racist scum (and similar variants) a couple of times and one even had an essay expressing the unsuitability of all the candidates, suggesting that Leeds City Council needed to sort out the NHS (the concept of local versus national appearing to pass that particular non-voter by).

By the end of stage two, it was obvious that Robert Finnigan had won, his was the only box where ballot papers could be seen peeking over the top. In the end, he got 3,665 votes, 51% of the vote and over 2,200 votes more than the second place candidate (BNP). However, as the turnout was just slightly over 40%, he was actually elected by only 21% of those eligible to vote. (The actual figures are here). He polled 3,860 votes four years ago when there were fourteen candidates for three posts

It seems likely that his eligibility to stand as a Councillor will be contested by others though and if it his upheld the election will be declared void.

Meanwhile on the tables across the hall, Judith Elliott was re-elected for Morley South with 300 more votes than last time and with the BNP also taking votes from Labour.

I’m a counting assistant today for the City Council Elections. I get to go to the count and even get paid for it, but have to do a fair bit of work in the process.

My own Ward where I live is Morley South but I’ll be counting for Morley North. There is likely to be some fireworks at this as assuming the incumbent Robert Finnigan wins again, the BNP have implied that they will be issuing an election challenge based on him possibly not being entitled to stand. (He gave his address as the MBI party office which is the flat of another Councillor and claims he works in Morley whereas he is thought to live in Batley and until recently worked in Cleckheaton). I imagine that he will be technically in the clear as it would have been straight-forward enough for him to get a casual job in Morley between the nomination date and yesterday, the only qualification required apparently. However, it is hardly whiter than white and he is coming to be regarded as damaged goods in some quarters previously supportive of him.

The downside is that if people don’t want to vote for independents (or neo-independents) then they may well vote for the BNP instead. The MBIs have been banging on about this in their leaflets (& online) to the point of tedium and whilst it is certainly true to an extent, the shrill tone smacks of desperation.

I don’t see a resurgence in Labour locally though, they haven’t even bothered putting up any “vote Labour” signs in the Labour Buildings in Town.

“We declare and pledge that in all our actions and deliberations the interests of the English people shall be paramount.

We further declare and pledge that our actions and deliberations shall be directed to the following ends:

To assert the right of the English people to live in a sovereign nation state of England, free of foreign control;

To agree a scheme for a Parliament for England;

To mobilise English opinion and ensure the approval of the English people for that scheme;

and to assert the right of the English people to secure the implementation of that scheme.”

The English claim of right

(Languishing in my drafts folder, oops!)