Polling cock-up in Newcastle-under-Lyme: Should heads roll?

Paul Farrelly won the seat in June by 30 votes

Like a banana republic

That's how a judge once famously described Birmingham, after it emerged industrial quantities of postal votes had been trafficked around the city in car boots during previous general elections.

But the shenanigans in Staffordshire's key marginal seat of Newcastle-under-Lyme during the run-up to last June's general election strains credulity further still.

Please suspend your disbelief.

Here's what happened according to a damning review, just published: (For once the most over-worked adjective in journalism seems absolutely right. "Damning" really is the operative word.)

Nearly 1,000 legitimate voters were not included on the register and 500 postal votes were "disenfranchised".

In plain English, they were simply never counted.

Students are among those who have complained about being unable to vote

Students at Keele University, in the constituency, complained at the time of being told at polling stations that their names were not on the list.

Now, the council's chief executive and its head of audit and elections are both suspended pending an investigation by the Association of Electoral Administrators.

The Electoral Commission says it, too, will report on it.

That would be quite serious enough by itself.

But factor in the intense history of this perennial see-saw seat and it gets worse still.

Students and some elderly people using the postal system for the first time were denied a vote, the review found

Last June it was top of the Tories' local target list.

The 30-vote majority secured by the incumbent Labour MP Paul Farrelly over his Tory challenger Owen Meredith was dwarfed by the 1,500 or so potential votes that never materialised.

When BBC Radio Stoke canvassed opinions on the streets of Newcastle this week, most people they spoke to thought the election should be re-run. It's not scientific but it is understandable.

In practice, it looks highly unlikely, short of Mr Farrelly resigning his seat to trigger a by-election.

But neither he nor Mr Meredith favour a re-run on the grounds that you cannot recapture the moment, the climax of a general election campaign, six months later.

However damaged this election may have been, their argument is that you don't repair one democratic failure by compounding it with another.

Debacle debated

Chief executive John Sellgren was the acting returning officer at the time of the 2017 general election

The Labour leader of Newcastle council, Elizabeth Shenton, has said she is sorry about all this.

But she has resisted any suggestion she should stand down over it.

"Elected politicians play no part in elections," she said.

But Mr Farrelly and Mr Meredith both think Mrs Shenton should "consider her position".

She can expect further pressure to resign when the full council debates the debacle next week.

Mr Farrelly says he repeatedly raised his concerns with her before the election.

Newcastle's Labour MP Paul Farrelly and his Conservative challenger do not favour a re-run of June's election

He believes the departure of experienced staff last year had left the authority under-staffed and ill-equipped.

But he says the council responded only with "complacency and denial".

Mr Meredith agrees, describing the council's attitude as "laissez faire": I translate that as "relaxed" or "casual".

What's more, the police are examining the case as well because the conduct of elections is subject to electoral law.

For "Newcastle-under-Lyme" read "Newcastle-under-Investigation".