MAIL ON SUNDAY COMMENT: Dirty methods… and a grave menace to our democracy

Democracy has to be fought for in every generation. People get used to having such freedoms and take them for granted. But they are always under threat.

The winner of an election attains so much authority for so long that unscrupulous power-seekers must often be tempted to try dirty tricks.

And the supervision of the voting process in this country is remarkably relaxed. Maybe it is too relaxed for these cynical times.

Not long ago there were major incidences of misuse of postal ballots. 

Now there are serious, sustained allegations of new malpractices in last Thursday’s Gorton and Denton by-election, as Reform leader Nigel Farage complains in our pages today.

Some observers claim that the alleged malpractices could even have altered the result. 

In some cases, voters are said to have photographed their ballots, presumably so that they could show them to someone who might have offered them favours in return for their votes – behaviour not seen here for 150 years.

The main method involved, so-called family voting, does not sound anything like as bad as it is. 

Put simply, it involves a man violating the secrecy of the polling booth to tell a woman how to vote. 

Left-wingers should surely be especially outraged at such a denial of women’s rights.

But, perhaps because it may have benefited a Left-wing party over a Right-wing one, reactions from that quarter have been muted. Such complacency is a grave mistake.

All democrats must rally to defend democracy, or it will disappear.

Reform leader Nigel Farage, pictured at a press conference last month, speaks in today’s pages about serious, sustained allegations of new malpractices in last Thursday’s Gorton and Denton by-election

Will the people of Iran now rise up?

The free world has long been exasperated by Iran’s mullahs, their support for terror by proxy, their perpetual raising of tensions in the Middle East and their hatred of Israel.

In recent weeks, the whole civilised community has been disgusted by the Iranian regime’s murderous brutality towards democratic protesters.

Tehran’s incessant attempts to create nuclear weapons, and its development of ever more menacing missiles, threaten the entire region.

The Revolutionary Guard is one of the most sinister state-sponsored forces anywhere.

Iran’s treatment of women is oppressive and stupid. Its elite is corrupt and economically incompetent. From any viewpoint, Iran is a problem badly in need of a solution.

So many will look at Donald Trump’s attack on Iran, in alliance with Israel, and give it their support. 

But is the President’s method, of heavy attacks from the air coupled with encouraging the Iranian people to rise up, the right one?

Previous Western attempts to overthrow vicious Middle Eastern regimes have gone badly wrong. 

Much will now depend on Iran’s reaction. On previous occasions it has not seemed keen to hit back, fearing a full-scale war. 

Let us hope this attack does not widen into a general conflict.