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Thursday 4 December 2008

New Labour’s final collapse

Fraser Nelson takes to the road and finds voters turning to whichever parties will maximise the mutiny against Blair and Brown. The SNP is now a party of protest, not separatism — but have the Tories done enough to stay on track for power?

Ballot forms have been sent out, but there is already chaos with the computer counting system. So far, 100 councils have reported problems with the new software. South Bedfordshire council has realised, too late, that it bought the wrong computers to count the postal votes, and will scarcely have time to train staff even if it finds the right ones on time. All the ingredients are in place for a fiasco that could last days, with postal votes being counted manually. And what if there are there further allegations of fraud, of the sort that dogged Birmingham Council three years ago?

The Conservatives have spent millions on their own computer system, which is making  its debut in this election campaign. Francis Maude, the Tory chairman, has lined up a greater number of candidates than Labour (who are, he says, contesting only 60 per cent of the seats) and believes the party is better placed than ever to reach its target voters. But my final election stop, around the Lake District with the Lib Dems, illustrates the limits of such hi-tech sophistication.

I’m met at the station by Peter Thornton, a bearded Lib Dem councillor dressed in a woollen tie and Barbour jacket who is full of stories about the Conservatives’ failure to gather local intelligence. He shows me a pamphlet put out for Wendy Barry, a Tory candidate, who is described as a ‘he’ throughout the leaflet. ‘Look at their poster’ — we drive past a half-blue, half-green Conservative banner which has sprouted from a farmer’s field. ‘A camouflaged election placard. Only the Tories would think of that.’

Our first stop is to meet Cath Laddis, a farmer’s wife, who says she will vote Lib Dem because she is pleased with Tim Farron, the local MP, who unseated Tim Collins at the last election. ‘Tim [Farron] spent 45 minutes playing football with my kids,’ she says. ‘Most politicians would kick a ball and be gone.’ I ask what she thinks of Sir Menzies Campbell. ‘Who’s he?’ she asks, and seems utterly disinterested when I tell her.

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