Tribune – Comment, news and reviews from Britain's democratic left

The BBC has bowed to top-level pressure from the Conservative Party – and Lord Ashcroft’s own lawyers – and dropped a lengthy investigation by Panorama into the party’s billionaire backer and deputy chairman Michael Ashcroft. Central Office was getting terribly twitchy about the effect the revelations about Lord Cashcroft, as he known on the other side of the House, would have on the Tories’ election chances. So they browbeat the corporation into “shelving it under after the general election”.

Panorama’s special investigation was to have been broadcast on Monday March 15, three days after Tribune published new revelations about the way Lord Ashcroft has sought to disguise the source of his donations to the Conservative Party – but, according to those close to the investigation, “there was pressure from the top to shelve or drop the programme. The truth is it will never now see the light of day.”

The corporation, they say, doesn’t want to antagonise the Tories just before they form the next government. The trouble is, of course, that the Conservatives are determined to bugger up the Beeb anyway.

Not in the Unite ballot, of course, which despite the high court’s incredible decision to invalidate the first time round nevertheless represented the overwhelming view of BA cabin staff. No, rather, in the Tribune poll on whether or not the strike was justified.

Last week’s poll, asking whether the Unite cabin staff’s strike action was “unjustified” and “deplorable” as some in government have suggested, was rigged by an individual who felt the need to vote yes 69 times.

Needless to say, if BA can overturn a strike ballot on a technicality, we can overturn an online poll when there’s demonstrable ballot stuffing going on. So the real result – a much more Tribune-like 79% in support of the strikers – is hereby reinstated.

Trevor Fisher (Letters, Tribune March 19) says that a strong Labour candidate should have been in place months ago in Stoke Central. This would indeed have been desirable, but he overlooks the fact that Mark Fisher only announced his retirement a couple of weeks ago. Is Trevor Fisher really saying that Labour’s National Executive Committee should have removed a popular and long-serving MP over the heads of his constituency party?

It is actually MPs who are treating members with contempt by delaying their decision to stand down until the last minute. If they had given proper notice, constituencies would have been free to longlist, shortlist and select their candidate in time to mount a full campaign. The only restrictions would be where all-women shortlists were specified. Stoke Central has been granted an open selection.

Members of the NEC would then be left to handle a few unavoidable vacancies, such as that caused by the tragic and untimely death of Ashok Kumar, and could use the extra time to get on with campaigning in their own and neighbouring seats. Nothing would make me happier.

This post was first published in the Tribune letters section in the magazine dated 26 March.