Leading bookseller and finance chief add voices

Christopher Foyle

ONE of the country’s most famous booksellers has called for tighter controls on postal voting in the General Election amid fears that the poll could be open to fraud and dirty tricks.
Christopher Foyle, who lives in Covent Garden and is chairman and managing director of the popular Foyle’s bookshop in Charing Cross Road, has suggested the panic over voting systems might be calmed by a dramatic intervention from United Nations observers.
He said: “I’m very concerned about the potential for massive fraudulent postal voting.”
And his views were echoed by last night (Wednesday) by senior Labour councillor John Mills, the Town Hall’s finance chief, who admitted he had reservations over the promotion of postal voting. This follows the vote-rigging fraud case in Birmingham that led High Court judge Richard Mawrey QC to warn that the use of postal votes could be abused and compared the British system to a “banana republic”.
Cllr Mills said: “I’m not in favour of postal voting given what’s gone on in Birmingham but it’s up to national government to set the rules. The difficulty is it’s hard for a party in an individual constituency to take a stand when all the other parties are taking advantage.”
Both Labour and Liberal Democrat election teams were this week promoting the use of postal votes in mailshots to members as they prepare for the May 5 poll. At the launch of the local Labour Party campaign on Tuesday night, a pile of postal vote application forms were left on the speakers table for members to pick up.
Mr Foyle warned: “It is serious stuff that you normally read about in the Ukraine or Zaire, not Britain.”
Lib Dems are also distributing applications for postal votes. Lib Dem leader Flick Rea said: “It is an extension of the democratic right, and anything that encourages people to vote is a good thing. The returning officers in Camden are of a high standard.”