Opinion: Betting row robs Suffolk voters of their democratic rights

The betting scandal that has engulfed the general election campaign over the last 10 days finally hit Suffolk this week - and effectively deprived thousands of people their vote!

Personally, I don't see the bet that Labour candidate Kevin Craig made on himself losing in the fight for Central Suffolk and North Ipswich as anything like as serious as using inside information to make a killing on the date of the election.

However, it was an incredibly stupid thing for him to do and I fully understand why the Labour Party suspended him and withdrew support.

The fact is that as a candidate in a seat he is uniquely placed to influence the result of the election there - so I can well understand why the Gambling Commission want to take a long hard look at his bet.

His description of this as a "stupid error of judgement" was spot-on, but frankly one thing we have to ask is whether the voters really want to elect an MP who is prone to a "stupid error of judgement".

One thing that does puzzle me is where Mr Craig found a bookmaker prepared to take a bet on him losing if this was placed "a few weeks ago when I thought I would never win this seat".

The odds on him losing must have been about 1/50 or even shorter. I'm not a betting man but do bookies really make such short odds? And if he was to win anything more than a few pence however big was his stake?

I'm sure he was planning to give any winnings to charity - but surely charity would have benefitted more if he gave his stake direct to it.

If, as he said, he's someone who likes a flutter there are plenty of other things to bet on that he didn't have so much control over!

His actions have now left the 76,000 voters of Central Suffolk and North Ipswich without an official Labour candidate in a seat which, according to the pollsters, they had a realistic chance of winning.

What do their voters do now? The ballot papers have already been printed with his name on them and don't forget thousands of votes will have already been cast by post.

I suspect Labour voters will either peel off to the Liberal Democrats or Greens - or not vote at all.

Some may want to show their support for the party but it's difficult to imagine that Mr Craig will get a huge number of votes on the day.

Patrick Spencer (right) is likely to benefit from the suspension of Kevin Craig. (Image: Kevin Craig)

The real winner in this would appear to be Conservative candidate Patrick Spencer - although having met him a couple of times he doesn't strike me as the kind of person to go around gloating about his opponent's troubles.

I'm not sure I'd say the same for all his supporters, though!

I've been covering politics to some extent in Suffolk since the 1983 election when the original Central Suffolk seat was formed.

I have to say that for the last 41 years there has been very little interest in the seat outside the county's borders.

Even when former MP Sir Michael Lord stepped down to be replaced by Dr Dan Poulter in 2010 that raised little more than a footnote on the regional news.

But over the last couple of months the seat has had more of a spotlight on it than at anytime before - with Dr Poulter's defection, questions over donations made by Mr Craig to Labour (which have apparently now been returned) and by Mr Spencer's family to the Tories and now this.

The real losers here are the voters of the constituency. They've been left in a position where they're unable to vote for the party that seems as near certain as you can be to win the election - and that can't be good for democracy.

The opinions expressed in this column are the personal views of Paul Geater and do not necessarily reflect views held by this newspaper, its sister publications or its owner and publisher Newsquest Media Group Ltd.