David Mundell MP set to appear in court over election expenses probe

The Sunday Herald once again carries the story about David Mundell MP heading to the courts regarding the mistake in his election expenses.

The Scotland Office Minister, who is in charge of election conduct north of the Border, is preparing to petition the Court of Session after filing a misleading account of how much he spent on the campaign trail earlier this year.

David Mundell, is expected to ask the courts permission to make retrospective changes to his official spending returns, which he previously signed off as “complete and accurate”.

However, even if successful, he still faces a possible legal sanction for breaking the spending limit in the short campaign expenses.
David Mundell MP has already referred himself to the UK election watchdog over the error.

It is understood that Conservative Party lawyers in London recommended the court action and a date has been set for later this month, although Mundell is not expected to appear in person.

Under the 1983 Representation of the People Act, courts can allow candidates to amend errors in their returns caused “by inadvertence or any reasonable excuse of a like nature”, provided they were made in good faith, not calculated.

In 2005, Gordon Brown’s local Labour party petitioned the Court to include a rates bill for £200 in the then-Chancellor’s election expenses after the filing deadline had passed.

However, unlike Gordon Brown, David Mundell could still be in trouble after a petition is granted, as his mistake broke the legal spending limit.

Breaching the spending limit is a criminal offence punishable by a fine of up to £5000.

Lib Dem Voice also carries the story.

Police probe David Mundell election expenses complaint

The BBC report:

Police have confirmed they are investigating a complaint of an alleged breach of election expenses rules by Scotland's only Tory MP.

It follows newspaper reports that a bill for £700 had been omitted from David Mundell's campaign costs.

Dumfries and Galloway Constabulary said it had been asked to investigate.

Mr Mundell said a mistake had been made in completing expense forms but this was due "solely to human error" and was "not any attempt to mislead".

"Such mistakes are not uncommon in election returns and there are established procedures for dealing with them," he said.

"Obviously, as soon as it was drawn to my attention, I informed the Electoral Commission who have an interest in such matters."

Human error and an extremely fast response from David, including reporting himself to the Electoral Commission.

The Scottish Westminster TV debate plus Alex Salmond

The title isn't meant to antagonise the SNP supporters, I still cannot get my head round why he wants to participate in one debate, snub another and threaten court action on the Prime Ministerial debates?

Anyway, back to The Hub Sunday 25th April at 10.30am - the Sky debate live.

As a mere audience member (I know how to enjoy a little time off from the general election campaign) I was to be there at 9.30am, I arrived by taxi, no buses at that time of morning from home, to find the Conservatives handing out playing cards - was very disappointed to see Annabel Goldie wasn't portrayed as the Queen of whatever, but the big question was, who would be the joker, so many to choose from?

No-one, they all had policy statements on and quite a few of them with appalling grammar and a fair few spelling mistakes.

Anyway, after being ticked off the list (there is always a list at such glamorous events, so I am told) I grabbed a coffee and headed to colleagues and friends who were making up the Liberal Democrats section in the audience.

There was a block for each of the four parties plus a larger block of voters, some who were going to be asking the questions.  I saw fellow blogger Yousuf on the Labour benches, but didn't get chance to say hi, so Yousuf - Hello and sorry for not saying hello yesterday!

There were some strange questions, some good questions and a couple of great questions.

The four politicians were Alistair Carmichael (Liberal Democrats), Alex Salmond (SNP), Jim Murphy (Labour) and David Mundell (Scotland's only Conservative MP).

There were some good points made by all four which I had hoped to do some live tweets about, but after the first one I had to turn the Blackberry off, which was a great shame, but given how many times the camera seemed to pick me up when I watched the show back last night, I am quite glad in someways lol.

Alistair Carmichael had a great soap box moment on the Iraq war (and rightly so) and really had Jim Murphy on the ropes, so much so he had a ten second stare out after having a real go at Murphy and Labour for not having even the decency of counting the number of civilians who died in Iraq.

Hamish Macdonell writes for the Caledonian Mercury:

Mr Carmichael was the only one to show real passion, when he got worked up over the war in Iraq, berating Mr Murphy for the Labour government’s failure to show “even the decency of counting” the number of Iraqi dead.

Alistair continued his thread of anger on civil liberties as well as the illegal war in Iraq.

Indeed, Mr Carmichael was particularly effective – as expected given this was a question about civil liberties – when he said: “When we erode these freedoms we do the terrorists’ job for them.”

Hamish Macdonell writes a good summary of the debate bar one line, where he gets it very, very wrong:

Mr Salmond appeared the more statesmanlike of the three simply by not getting involved in the shouting matches against Mr Murphy...

Erm, Hamish why don't you watch the debate again and concentrate on the section where Murphy accuses Salmond of sleeping for Scotland - that is a shouting match?

Anyway I will leave the last word to Jamie Livingstone of STV:

The Liberal Democrat’s Alistair Carmichael may be most satisfied having painted himself as a measured alternative to the other three panelists. To my mind both Alex Salmond and Jim Murphy under performed...

Tories split in Scotland as they admit "The Cameron effect has not reached Scotland"

Following on from last months meeting between David Cameron and Scottish Conservative donors where they said David Mundell was not up to the job of Scottish Secretary should the Conservatives win the general election (arrogant assumption by them they will), now Cameron is being urged to allow the Scottish champagne supping Conservatives to form a breakaway party.

Apparently Tim Montgomerie editor of the ConservativeHome.com website and fairly senior Tory has urged Cameron to take this radical move of allowing the Scottish Conservatives to form a breakaway party, because the Cameron effect stops at the border.

That has nothing to do with the effectiveness of either Mundell or Goldie really Tim (not entirely anyway), it is mainly because the Conservatives are irrelevant in Westminster politics here in Scotland with just one MP (compared to twelve Lib Dems).

The Conservatives are more irrelevant in Westminster politics in Scotland than the SNP, the Westminster general election in Scotland is between the two parties with the highest number of MPs, that is Labour and the Liberal Democrats.

Even the Tories admit their progress will be limited in this forthcoming general election and that Thatcher damaged Scotland.

Tim Montgomerie tells The Herald; "The Cameron effect has not reached Scotland like it has in Wales or the north of England. If the progress in Scotland is as limited as it looks like it might be, we should revisit the idea of creating a Scottish party with its own identity. It would help them break free from the Thatcher years."

So, as David Cameron's Conservatives are being urged to split from the ineffective Scottish Conservatives perhaps it is time for the Liberal Democrats to step up and claim the position of the Official Opposition in Scotland and given we have more MPs than the Conservatives and the SNP combined, it is true and with Alistair Carmichael MP as our Shadow Scottish Secretary, we can hold our own in a debate, unlike Mr Mundell.