In the weeks immediately preceding an election, government resources are not meant to be deployed for party political campaigns. The convention – commonly called “purdah” but officially described as the “pre-election period of sensitivity” – is not an enforceable prohibition. It relies on deference to democratic protocol and an intuitive sense of what constitutes fair play in the electoral arena.
The Conservative party has abandoned those qualities. The period running up to Thursday’s local, mayoral and police commissioner elections across England have been punctuated with government announcements that look customised more for campaign purposes than practical administration. In the days before the polls open, the Home Office has boasted of successfully flying an asylum seeker to Rwanda, and released a video showing immigration enforcement officers raiding homes and putting people in secure vans ready for deportation.
