acceptable". Flight's comments were used by the Labour Party in an attempt to justify its claims that the Conservatives were planning to substantially cut government services, which had been greeted with scepticism by the media, and Flight immediately resigned his post, eventually to have the Conservative whip withdrawn and his candidacy as Conservative MP for his seat blocked. It later emerged that the tape recording had been made by a Labour Party member who had somehow attended the meeting, giving rise to Conservative allegations that Labour was using illicit tactics. Security and integrity of the ballot The period immediately before the 2005 general election has seen increased concern about the integrity of the electoral system in Britain. Postal voting has been permitted in United Kingdom elections since 1918. In 2001, after a recommendation by the Home Office Working Party on Electoral Procedures, the government with the support of the other parties changed the law so that applicants for a postal vote no longer had to state a reason why they were unable to vote in person, so making postal voting available "on demand". On 4 April 2005, Richard Mawrey QC (sitting as a judge in an Election court) declared the result of two wards in Birmingham from the 2004 local elections there void by reason of "widespread fraud" in postal voting committed by the successful Labour candidates. Other local cases, most notably in Bradford, have seen accusations of postal voting frauds committed by other parties. Mawrey stated that he found the system of postal voting to be insecure, and expressed his concerns about whether the government was intending to prevent fraud. Nick Raynsford, a Minister in the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister, told Parliament that the government would commit £10 million to improving postal ballot security. Events around the announcement of the general election The election date Until the introduction of the Fixed-term Parliaments Act in 2011, the dates for general elections in the United Kingdom were not fixed, being instead set by the government with a minimum notice of 17 working days, the length of a general election campaign. The only legal limitation, under the Parliament Act 1911, was that Parliament could not last longer than five years. As the previous general election was held on 7 June 2001, another election was not required until 7 June 2006. However, governments with safe majorities in the House of Commons