Today's verdict on the Birmingham electoral fraud trial is a big blow to the Labour party, which has had to suspend six of its councillors after defending postal voting for months.
Richard Mawrey QC, sitting as an election commissioner, tore into the government's "denial" about the "hopelessly insecure" system of postal voting, which had allowed "electoral fraud that would disgrace a banana republic".
Strong stuff, and words that the opposition parties are bound to quote to ministers during the coming weeks. Labour strategists will be particularly worried that the scandal has happened in the Midlands, one of the key election battlegrounds.
