What is the Independent up to with its laughable pro-AV story. It accuses the no to AV’ group accused of being ‘a Tory front organisation’. Oh dear.
Its basis for the claim is the well known fact that various members of the cross party campaign team as well as key donors are Tories:
“The early driving-force behind the campaign to reject the alternative vote for Westminster elections was the Tory peer Lord Leach of Fairford, who is its chairman and also heads Open Europe, a eurosceptic think-tank. He has donated £25,000 to NO to AV.“The campaign’s head of press, Dylan Sharpe, worked for Boris Johnson during his campaign for the London Mayoralty in 2008 and went on to the centre-right think Policy Exchange. Matthew Elliott, the campaign’s director, previously worked for the Tory MP Bill Cash and headed the Taxpayers’ Alliance which was set up in 2004 to spotlight government waste and campaign for lower taxes.”
What the story in the Liberal Democrat backing, and alternative vote supporting Independent, does not do is mention Labour No To AV. Not once. Pretty sloppy reporting on the part of Nigel Morris, deputy political editor at the Indy, considering Labour No to AV launched a month ago, is backed by hundreds of MPs and councillors, and has run No to AV press ads and leaflets of its own.
Is the Yes to Fairer votes campaign a front for (whisper it) the Liberal Democrats? I’m just asking. I thought fronts were the subjects for conspiracy nuts not serious newspapers.
