Undue influence?
- 2 Jan 07, 05:37 PM
Some sense of perspective always helps: Today was not, thankfully, electing the new president of Ukraine or even a parish councillor. The vote which finds itself in the dock this morning, accused of being unsound, is our rather-less-serious piece of Christmas knockabout, the listeners' poll.
The question this year (in a country sometimes accused of being over-regulated) was what piece of legislation our audience would most like to repeal. The charge sheet alleges that the poll was fixed - rigged by the ruthless lobbying machine that is the Countryside Alliance to call for the repeal of the ban on hunting with dogs.
Was undue influence brought to bear?
The truth is that it's very hard to be sure. When we set up something like this we put some basic safeguards in place - you can't, for example, send multiple entries from the same computer - but it's impossible to be certain that every single vote was cast by an independent-minded individual who heard the arguments on the programme and decided, free from any outside influence, to take part.
We do know, of course, that the Alliance had a link urging supporters to vote - but it's a big leap from there to the assumption that the link was wholly responsible for the clear-cut result of the poll. The Hunting Act is a controversial piece of legislation. Is anyone really surprised to find it on our listeners' blacklist?
"It should," , "have been a bit of festive fun with a slightly serious political edge". Actually, I have news - our vote was a bit of festive fun with a slightly serious political edge. The problem comes when people try to treat it differently.
Years ago, in the pre-internet days when we asked people to write in to nominate their Personality of the Year, I remember dozens of identical postcards arriving in the office all written in the same hand, all stamped with a House of Commons postmark, and all nominating the same member of Parliament. My message to the slightly desperate MP all those years ago, to the commentators today, and to whoever complains next year that the vote has been rigged (as I'm sure they will) would be the same: "Calm down. You'll spoil it if you take it too seriously".
Ceri Thomas is editor of the Today programme
