Slough, the gateway to Eton and immortalised by John Betjeman and, more recently, Ricky Gervais, will now also be known as the home of hundreds of fictitious, “ghost” Pakistani voters. The electoral fraud judgment has exposed yet again the seamy side of politics, as the Derek Conway affair did for the Commons.

The impression is fostered that corruption is rife: that politicians are on the take and make. But this is a gross exaggeration. There is a crucial contrast between potential loopholes – whether over fraudulent registration and postal voting, or MPs’ expenses – and the scale of abuse in practice.

The existence of a number of examples of outrageous fraud – the Birmingham case involving Labour councillors heard in 2005, a number involving Lib Dems, and the Conservative one in Slough yesterday – does not mean that British elections are fraudulent. We are still talking about a series of isolated cases, often featuring people of Asian origin, rather than an epidemic. Taken as a whole, our elections are not fixed.

There are, however, no grounds for complacency. Richard Mawrey, QC, the presiding judge yesterday, as in the Birmingham case, argued that only one of the 14 abuses he identified then had been corrected by the Electoral Administration Act 2006, and Slough had produced a new one, “roll stuffing”, or padding out the roll with false names. The problem is not just with postal voting, but also with registration. At each stage, fraud can occur.

Having brought in postal voting on demand in the hope of boosting turnout (a reasonable aim), ministers are now wary of tightening the rules for fear of depressing registration and voting. But having a full register and high turnout can, and should, be compatible with an honest system. Indeed, the integrity of the ballot underpins higher participation.

As the Electoral Commission has argued, we need individual, rather than household, voter registration, similar to what is now in place in Northern Ireland. This will involve a personal identifier. That in turn requires extra, earmarked money to help local councils to maintain the accuracy of the register.

There are parallels with MPs’ expenses. There is no evidence of wholesale abuse: rather, the rules are lax, creating a murky overlap between pay and genuine expenses. Politicians have been slow to act but flaws are being remedied. We need more robust guidelines about the conduct of politicians and elections, which do not seek to criminalise mistakes but isolate true cases of abuse with proportionate penalties (as is now being discussed between the Ministry of Justice and the Electoral Commission).

Moreover, some of the reforms now being touted, such as recalling MPs between elections, may increase mistrust. David Cameron and Nick Clegg have highlighted the antipolitician mood. But there are three strands: first, attacking the style and practices of the Brown Government; secondly, pressing for urgent remedy of the pay, expenses and pensions regime; thirdly, criticising the political system. The danger of blurring the three is that representative democracy generally, and not just its defects, is damned. Only a very few politicians are scoundrels, even in Slough.

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