Letters | 12 March 2011

Funny idea of fairness

Sir: Congratulations to Ed Howker and The Spectator (‘The alternative story’, 26 February) for lifting the lid on the Electoral Reform Society, an organisation that appears to thrive from a conflict of interests. It was our misfortune to encounter the ERS during a controversial campaign at the Royal Geographical Society in 2009, when the organisation was supposed to ensure fair conduct ahead of and during a special general meeting called to discuss the future of exploration. The RGS decided to include comments from the then president, Sir Gordon Conway, telling fellows how to vote on the back of the ballot paper. As Stanley Johnson reported in the Sunday Telegraph at the time, ‘even in Zimbabwe you don’t expect to find suggestions as to how to vote printed on the ballot paper’. Our legal counsel advised that this was ‘deeply unfair to the democratic process within the RGS’.