Oh Mr. Younger...will the Electoral Commission 'learn' from this?

Sunday Telegraph Letters
A different agenda
Date:3 October 2004

It is highly disingenuous of Sam Younger, the chairman of the Electoral Commission, to claim that the decision to give official designation to the Conservative-run "North-East Says No" campaign in the referendum on an elected regional assembly for the North-East, was taken by the commission without consulting its officials, and that all the information supplied "was given directly to commissioners" (letter, Sept 26).

As the campaign director of the long-established, rival "North-East No" campaign, I must tell your readers that the applications were given not to Mr Younger and his fellow-commissioners, but to Douglas Stewart, the commission's head of referendums, whose job was to appraise them, and with whom we had extensive consultations before the decision was taken.

Mr Younger's view of the evidence supplied may have been different to that of his officials, but he should not imply that he and his fellow-commissioners had any direct contact with the rival contenders.The fact remains that, for whatever reason, they gave the designation to a group with no campaigning track record, which offers a website so ineffectual as to be laughable, and which is identified with a political party so unpopular in the North-East that Mr Younger's choice has given the "Yes" campaign its only faint sniff of victory in what previously looked like a hopelessly one-sided battle.

And to part with £100,000 of public money without interviewing the two campaigns or even a telephone call to see if they actually exist smacks of the highest degree of incompetence imaginable. Or does it highlight another agenda?
From:
Neil Herron,
Campaign Director,
North-East No Campaign,
Sunderland, Tyne & Wear