The country is now fully engaged in a general election campaign. If you were in any doubt of that, Heather Harper isn’t. Heather is the Chairman of Conservatives Abroad. She writes on their website  “We need your vote to get a Conservative majority in 2015 – exercise your democratic right to have a say.” Heather is not alone. According to the Crawley Conservative Party website in a statement published on 9th March 2013 “With the next General Election in sight, work is well underway to ensure that we the Conservatives can continue to keep Crawley and the country on the road to prosperity well after 2015.” The problem with a campaign that is due to run for 26 months (assuming that the starting gun fired in March 2013 finishes in May 2015) is that all sorts of activities that would otherwise be considered normal day to day constituency business can look suspiciously like electioneering. To misquote a well known phrase, if it looks like electioneering, and sounds like electioneering, then it probably is electioneering!

Take for example the visit to Crawley on Saturday morning by James Brokenshire, the Minister for Crime and Security at the Home Office. James is as involved in the General Election campaign as Henry Smith, the Conservative MP. It is perfectly normal to invite a Government Minister to a constituency, particularly a marginal one like Crawley. The two men are free to canvass and campaign as much as they wish and invite other party members to join them. That after all is how democracy is enacted in the UK. However sadly they have both overlooked a small matter of an oath.  According to the Merriman-Webster dictionary an oath is “a formal and serious promise to tell the truth or to do something” One of the party members who is participated in the campaigning on Saturday is Katy Bourne, the Sussex Police and Crime Commissioner. Katy took an oath to be impartial almost a year ago. According to the Worthing Conservative Party website in a statement dated 23rd November 2012 “Katy Bourne has now sworn an Oath of Impartiality, effectively removing party politics from her role overseeing the Police.” The problem is that Katy keeps on trying to put party politics back into her role. At first she ensured that her campaigning was when she was ‘off duty’ from her PCC role. While that did not stop electors from thinking that their PCC wanted them to vote Conservative, Katy at least took the trouble to hide behind a fig leaf of being off duty. However now we are into the election campaign proper and Katy has relaxed into her new role, she appears to have forgotten all about the oath. When James Brokenshire comes to Crawley on Saturday to canvass with Henry, Katy, oath forgotton  will be there to meet him and to put on a show of unity with all the party faithful. According to the PCC website she is attending Henry’s Street Surgery. However the residents of Crawley will be left in no doubt what is going on. Indeed as a postscript to this blog page I can now reveal:

How Katy appeared to the visitors in Crawley

 

How Katy wants the photo to look

Another matter of interest is that the Sussex PCC website  has a button titled ‘transparency’ which appears to have a broken link! Coincidence? Probably, but concerning nevertheless!