Briefing from the Prime Minister’s Spokesman on: Postal Ballots, John Reid/Smoking, European Commission President and Euro 2004.
Postal Ballots
Asked if the Government was concerned that the postal ballot pilot schemes had been discredited, the Prime Minister’s Spokesman (PMS) said she did not agree with the premise of the question. As she had told journalists yesterday, we would condemn any attempt to influence the outcome of the elections through fraud or intimidation. She pointed out that there was an offence of personation which carried a penalty of two years in prison if people were convicted. She added that we did not believe the postal voting system was any more prone to fraud than the more the traditional way of voting using the ballot box, as earlier postal ballot pilot schemes had shown. Asked if it was possible that all-postal voting might not feature in future elections, the PMS said that an evaluation of the pilots would be carried out after the elections to examine how well the system had worked. Asked if she would agree that it would have been wiser to limit the pilots to two areas rather than four, the PMS said that there were four regions where postal voting was being piloted. The Electoral Commission would evaluate the results once the elections were over. Asked if the whole country would vote by post in the next election if the pilot schemes were deemed to be a success, the PMS said that she was not aware of any plans for compulsory postal votes for the whole country.
John Reid/Smoking
Asked if John Reid would talk about smoking in his speech today to the Public Health Annual Scientific meeting in Edinburgh, the PMS said that she had not seen a text of his speech.
European Commission President
Asked the Prime Minister’s view of Guy Verhofstadt as the next European Commission President, the PMS said that she hadn’t asked the Prime Minister’s opinion. Asked if the Prime Minister had a favourite candidate for the job, the PMS said that there would be a lot of discussion about EU matters over the coming days. She had no intention of pre-empting any of those discussions.
Euro 2004
Asked if the Prime Minister was planning to watch the Euro 2004 England v France match on Sunday, the PMS said that he usually liked to watch football games whenever he could.
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