INTRODUCTION

This is a story that has been running for months. As well as the Electoral Commission’s involvement, nine different police forces are investigating various MPs. In this post I will provide links to three versions of the story (all tally closely, and all are from national newspapers) and then quote a case from the past which indicates how seriously this kind of thing has been viewed.

THE STORY SO FAR

Here are the three links:

• For the Guardian version click here. Note, that as often when dealing with a controversial story the Graun has switched off its comments section.
• For the Independent version click here.
• For the Mirror version click here.

THE FRANK GRAY CASE

This case is almost a century old (I read the details in Iain Wilton’s “C B Fry: An English Hero”, where it featured because Fry was involved in the subsequent by-election). The culprit was Frank Gray’s election agent, who played fast and loose with campaign finances. Gray was as shocked as anyone when he found out what had been going on, and held his hands up. The judge in this case while praising Gray for his honesty and co-operation still considered it necessary to debar Gray from seeking public office for a period of seven years.

I never like to put up posts without a picture, so here (with apologies to any such creatures who take offence at being associated however loosely with Tory MPs) is a snail from this morning…