Political Parties and Elections Bill

My Lords, I am very pleased that the Liberal Democrat Front Bench has now come around to the view that I have been promoting for some time, that slogans should be omitted from ballot papers. In the past, all the parties have been guilty of using the description in this way. In my view, it is quite wrong and I hope that ways will be found to stop it. I have in front of me a copy of the ballot paper for the elections to the European Parliament in the north-west region, which has one or two interesting examples on it of exactly what we are complaining about—putting political slogans and other irrelevant information on ballot papers. The British National Party, as my noble friend has already said, says in its subsidiary description, "British National Party: Protecting British Jobs". That is clearly a slogan. The Christian Party says it is "proclaiming Christ’s Lordship". That may or may not be a slogan, but it seems to me that if the Christian Party wishes to stand, then what it is about should be part of its campaigning and not on the ballot paper. The Conservative Party and the Labour Party are crystal pure on this issue, and have nothing further, and the Liberal Democrats, for reasons I do not quite understand, say, "Liberal Democrats: liberal democrat". I do not think "Liberal Democrat" is a slogan, but why "Liberal Democrats" appears followed by "Liberal Democrat", I do not understand. Nevertheless, I think we are above reproach there. Then we have the English Democrats Party, which says, "English Democrats: Putting England First". That is clearly a slogan. We have something called the Jury Team, which I do not understand at all, that says, "Democracy, Accountability, Transparency". That might be an ideological statement, but it is not something that should be on the ballot paper. The Socialist Labour Party says, "Leader—Arthur Scargill". People will have their views as to whether he should be on the ballot paper; it did not do them much good. The Green Party says, "Green Party: Say No To Racism". That is clearly a slogan, and while one does not doubt that the Green Party is anti-racist, it ought not to be on the ballot paper. So it seems to me that this is prevalent: people are using it to promote a political message. It is still going on and it ought to be stopped.