Johann Hari

I would like to be able to say that Richard Littlejohn’s final pre-election column in The Sun exposed new levels of howling ignorance on his part, but in fact the staggeringly basic factual error at the core of his piece was just another day at work for him.

He wrote, “My polling card still hasn't arrived… I did try to get a vote, honest. Yesterday I rang the council's hotline in a last-ditch attempt to obtain a polling card. After a couple of rings, a Dalek answered and informed me that I had reached El-ec-tor-al Ser-vices. Then a woman's voice cut in. You know, the sort of bossy bird who tells you that all their operatives are busy helping other customers and you will be held in a queue until you lose the will to live. She told me: "Your message cannot be extended because that mailbox is full." And that was that. Press One to be transferred to India or slam the phone down for Sod This For A Game Of Soldiers.

So, Sun readers, it's up to you. I have been disenfranchised... [It's] not that I didn't want to [vote]. They won't let me. Ken Livingstone once said that if voting changed anything, they'd abolish it. In my case, they already have."

Er, you don't need a polling card to vote. You just turn up and say who you are. This is a very, very famous fact about the British electoral process. Indeed, there has been a long-running debate in all the serious newspapers about whether it should be changed. Clearly these basic facts have passed Littlejohn by entirely.

He can't even say that he needed the polling card to tell him where to vote, since he has said his wife and son (who live in the same house) received theirs. He could have followed the map on the back of their card, or asked a neighbour.

As an experiment, I got one of my old teachers to ask a group of NVQ students - eleven eighteen year-olds studying for basic qualifications in things like bricklaying - what they would do if they didn't receive their polling card and they wanted to vote. All but one knew that you don't need one to vote. It's official: Richard Littlejohn is far less informed than the average voter.

With this particular piece of startling ignorance, Littlejohn has done little harm. But bear in mind: he is no more scrupulous when he says asylum seekers are being "hosed down with benefits", or defends the insane racist Tony Martin as "honourable" and "heroic". These claims translate into real and vicious prejudice across the streets of Britain.

You couldn't make it up? Littlejohn does - all the time.