Cameron defends Osborne's comments in AV debate

David Cameron hands out leaflets as he campaigns against adoption of AV. Photograph: Steve Parsons/PA







Cameron defends Osborne's comments in AV debate:

PM says chancellor was just stating facts when discussing yes campaign being funded by Electoral Reform Society

David Cameron has risked increasing the acrimony of the debate on the alternative vote by defending controversial claims about the yes camp made by the chancellor, George Osborne.

In an interview on Sunday morning, Cameron defended Osborne's right to suggest that there was something improper about the way the Yes to Fairer Votes campaign has been funded by the Electoral Reform Society.

In an article in the Observer today, Lord Ashdown, the former Liberal Democrat leader, cites Osborne's comments as an example of the way the no campaign has resorted to "cynical smears and scaremongering".

Although he defended Osborne, the prime minister also said that he hoped that there would be a "reasonable argument" on both sides.

The AV campaign is reaching a crucial stage and Cameron and Nick Clegg – who will be giving a television interview on Sunday afternoon – are trying to campaign against and for AV respectively without letting the bitterness of the campaign do permanent damage to the coalition.

Osborne infuriated AV campaigners when he gave interviews to the Sun and the Daily Mail suggesting that the Electoral Reform Society should not be funding the yes campaign because its subsidiary, Electoral Reform Services Ltd, a company that organises elections, could profit from a switch to AV.

This charge is regarded as particularly toxic by the yes camp because the ERS says it is completely untrue. Five days ago, lawyers for the ERS sent a letter to journalists saying: "Electoral Reform Services Limited (the business arm of ERS) earns revenue in the public election administration area from three types of contract: printing of ballot papers and the producing of voting packs for postal voters; printing and mailing of the annual canvas return forms and processing telephone and internet responses; provision of election management software through its subsidiary Xpress software solutions.

"The form of voting system upon which parliamentary elections are based is entirely irrelevant to the provision of any of these services. A change in the voting system would, therefore, have absolutely no impact on any of the revenue earned by the ERSL."

This did not stop Osborne suggesting otherwise. In his Sun interview the chancellor said: "What really stinks is one of the ways the yes campaign is funded. The Electoral Reform Society – which is running some of the referendum ballots – stands to benefit if AV comes in because it could be one of the people who provide these electronic voting machines.That is exactly the sort of dodgy, behind-the-scenes shenanigans that people don't like about politics and politicians."

Writing in the Observer, Ashdown said: "The strategy [of the no camp] is clear. Throw as much mud as you can, don't let the issue be discussed openly, and frighten the public over the next three weeks into voting to preserve the power the present FPTP system has given you. This strategy stinks of the same odour which has surrounded our politics recently.

"For the chancellor of the exchequer – the chancellor of the exchequer – to claim that there is something 'dodgy' about the Electoral Reform Society donating cash to a campaign in favour of electoral reform is bizarre."

In an interview on Sky News, Cameron defended his chancellor. "The point George Osborne made, that the Electoral Reform Society is a big funder of the yes campaign, that it has an organisation that could make money out of it, that's a fact, and I think there's nothing wrong with bringing that fact out," he said.

Cameron's comment may anger some yes campaigners. But Ashdown, in a subsequent interview with Sky, chose not to escalate the row, deciding instead to praise Cameron for focusing his remarks mostly on the substantive arguments relating to AV.

In his interview, Cameron said that both sides of the coalition would accept the result of the referendum.

"Nick Clegg and I agreed that we would have this referendum. We also agreed that we would accept the result, whatever it is," Cameron said.

"Whatever it is, the coalition government, I believe, will go on being a strong and effective government, and whoever is on the losing side, as it were, will just have to pick themselves up and say, 'it was a fair argument, a fair fight, a fair referendum, the country has decided, and now we have got to get on with all the things that matter so much'."

Cameron said that he "profoundly" believed Britain should keep first past the post. "We've got a system that's effective, that's simple, that's fair, that works, that's used by half the world and we shouldn't swap it for a system that's unfair and used by just a handful of countries and is much more complicated," Cameron said.

Cameron also played down suggestions that a defeat in the AV referendum, and a bad result in the local elections held on the same day, would undermine Clegg's leadership of the Lib Dems.

The Lib Dems had made a "real difference" in government, said Cameron. "I would argue that there are real things that they can point to that they have got out of this government."


The Guardian
Sunday 17 April 2011 12.21 BST