Cynically deprived of my vote?

Countryside Column for 19 September

Electoral Reform Means Democratic Deficit

It’s absolutely ludicrous. In the words of the late Victor Meldrew, I DON’T BELIEVE IT!

(Speaking of whom, not long ago I was giving a talk to the Women’s Institute in the Hampshire village of Shawford  and was directed to turn right “just after the pub where Richard Wilson was run over”. Good heavens, I exclaimed, I had no idea he was dead. Such a lovely actor.  No, not the actor, the secretary replied, his character Victor Meldrew!  A month or so later I was sitting opposite Richard Wilson in a Soho production office and was just about to pluck up courage to regale him with the story when a runner came and whisked him away.)

Anyway I am sure that both Mr Wilson and Mr Meldrew would be equally incandescent about this latest pettifogging bureaucratic idiocy. I take my right to vote seriously. I may seldom get the government or council I want, but the process is vitally important. So I always update my entry on the electoral register right away. Thus, when the form arrived last week, I lost no time in doing it online. Only to get a letter back from the Electoral Services Office at TWBC telling me to provide documentary evidence to prove my identity.

Well, really! I’ve been on the register at this address for 20 years or more. I pay council tax on the house at this address. My election as a parish councillor is based on my identity at this address. What more could they possibly need?  The answer, apparently, is one document from table 1, plus two documents from table 2 or, alternatively, four documents from table 4. (Table 2 incidentally includes a firearms licence or a police bail sheet – giving rise to all sorts of fantasy scenarios.)

Look, OK, the Electoral Registration and Administration Act (2013) brought in the changes and I’m as opposed to electoral fraud as anyone. But surely we should be making it EASIER for people to register not harder. And, if they are putting these sort of barriers in the way of someone as settled as me, I dread to think how difficult it will be for people with a less conventional lifestyle.

This needs an urgent rethink, Mr Cameron. Oh, but wait a moment, could it be that your party might actually benefit if fewer such people can vote? Or is that just too cynical?