Is it worth £22 of taxpayers money per vote to return Davis to parliament ?

Stephen Tall on LibDem Voice speculates on tonight's result at the Haltemprice and Howden by-election.

Goodness knows what will happen. I hope the people of H&H will show some good judgment and watch the telly instead of voting for Davis.

I would have thought that all the 25 candidates aside from Davis will get tiddler votes and Davis will get a disappointing vote for him - but way ahead of everyone else.

Of all the exercises of “democracy” in this country in the last forty years this is the one which brings me nearest to nauseation. It is a completely pointless exercise and Davis should be invoiced for this publicity exercise, which will no doubt boost the deal he gets for his memoirs.

If Davis had been against anything over 2 days (detention without charge) it might be different, but the fact that he was in favour of 28 days, but draws a huge line at 42 days, is ridiculous.

Here’s one little mathematics exercise for the wee small hours:

The Telegraph reports:

According to one estimate, the by-election process has cost taxpayers more than £200,000.
“Free mailing provided to each of the candidates will cost Royal Mail a total of £112,600. And East Riding Council which will administer the election and the counting of ballots tomorrow, is expected to spend at least £95,000. ”

So, when the result is announced, divide £200,000 by the number of votes cast for Davis and then ask: Was the exercise worth that much taxpayers money for each vote?

My estimate is that he will get about 9,000 votes, so each vote cast for him will have cost the taxpayer £22. A very expensive form of "democracy" when all it is doing is re-sending someone back to Parliament on a freshly inflated cloud of his own ego.