A question for Chris Huhne

You know a political campaign has gone terribly wrong when a Cabinet Minister threatens defamation proceedings against the Prime Minister. And that is precisely what happened this weekend, when Energy Secretary Chris Huhne began snarling in the Sunday papers. Stating that the Tory claim that the AV electoral system would cost more was “demonstrably untrue,” Huhne said:

“

“It is frankly worrying if you have colleagues, who you have respected and who you have worked well with, who are making claims which have no foundation in truth whatsoever. If they don't come clean on this I am sure the law courts will.”

This row dates back to a piece that we ran in The Spectator in February, in which I set out the vested financial interest that the Yes campaign has in the outcome of the referendum. To summarise: the Yes campaign is principally administered by the Electoral Reform Society, which turns out to own Britain’s largest election management company, Electoral Reform Services Ltd (ERSL). So far, ERSL has donated more than £1m to the Yes campaign and, given its unique role in the administration of our elections, clearly has a some financial interest in the outcome of the referendum.

But we can do better than that. We know that both the ERS and ERSL stand to profit from a switch to AV for several good reasons. First, because any change in our electoral system is likely to incur a cost — all change does. Then, because AV is significantly more complex than our current voting system — it may require counting ballots more than once in the event that the leading candidate receives less than 50 per cent of the vote. And, finally, we know that both organisations stand to make money from AV because — and this is not insignificant — they have privately admitted it.

What follows is an extract from a document I referred to in my original article. It is an Electoral Reform Society internal “Risk Document,” and is explicit about the conflict of interest which arises as a result of the funding of the referendum campaign, stating: "It is possible that ERSL will profit as a result of a YES vote (increased business opportunity)."

So let us play his lawyer for a second and ask Mr. Huhne the obvious question: if the Alternative Vote system will not cost more to administer than FPTP, why do the people who make money from managing our elections claim it represents an “increased business opportunity” from which they may profit?