Calling all who might have been present at a stated 'party' where Andrew Gilligan, the Daily Telegraph media group staff, was feted in East London..

Calling all who might have been present at a stated 'party' where Andrew Gilligan, the Daily Telegraph media group staff, was feted in East London..

This call is based on a claim by Andrew Gilligan himself to the effect [our paraphrases] that a number of his ‘moderate Muslim’ fans held a ‘thank you’ meal for him.

We are making this call to specifically verify information about the "NO to a directly elected mayor" Campaign.

Did anyone present have a conversation with Andrew Gilligan about the subject?

If so, please contact us on the usual numbers and via the usual email address ASAP!

Thank you.

[To be continued]

CONTEXTUAL material: Allegations about voter fraud & the 'watchdog' chief. Details on complaints about Tower Hamlets Referendum will be out on Monday

How £100k 'Modern Militant' presided over voting shambles
By IAN GALLAGHER
Last updated at 2:18 PM on 9th May 2010
Comments (71)
Add to My Stories

Now observers from Kenya say British system is a 'recipe for corruption'
Tories missed out on majority by just 16,000 votes
Woman in charge of Electoral Commission is long-term agitator for electoral 'reform'
She once described House of Lords as a 'relic and active hindrance'
She lives with Left-wing former leader of Hackney Council
She's paid £100,000 a year for a three-day-week - a job set up by Tony Blair

Modern militant: Jenny Watson has had a long career in quangos
The woman who presided over Britain’s ‘Third World’ voting chaos is a former Left-wing campaigner dubbed ‘The Modern Militant’ who now earns £100,000 for a three-day week as head of the election quango.
Jenny Watson has been a long-term agitator for voting reform and was once active in a pressure group seeking major constitutional change.
She again called for modernisation of the system following the shambles of Thursday’s poll – even though as chairman of the Electoral Commission, a quango set up by Tony Blair, it was her job to ensure the vote could run smoothly.
As thousands of people were locked out of the polls, 46-year-old Ms Watson went on TV to blame everyone but herself for the fiasco.
She criticised returning officers and described the inadequacies of the system as ‘a legacy of the Victorian era’.
She said that election law may now need to be changed – a view perhaps unsurprising given her radical past. In the late Nineties she was campaign manager at Charter 88 – the Left-wing pressure group that advocated constitutional and electoral reform.
At the time, Ms Watson said: ‘The House of Lords is a relic, an active
hindrance to a government which the people chose to control the country.’
Since then Ms Watson, a seasoned human rights campaigner, has moved from quango to quango, fronting, among others, the Equal Opportunities Commission, where she earned her ‘Modern Militant’ epithet.
She joined the Electoral Commission last year, an organisation that has now been swamped by calls from angry voters who were unable to exercise their democratic right, and Ms Watson has promised a ‘thorough review’ of what happened.
The chaos means that the results in some seats may yet be challenged in the courts.
Shami Chakrabarti, director of civil rights group Liberty, described the chaos as ‘unworthy of a mature democracy like ours’.
TORIES MISSED MAJORITY BY 16,000 VOTES
David Cameron has been kept out of moving straight into Number 10 by the will of just 16,000 voters.
The Tories’ ability to form a majority government was thwarted by just 0.06 per cent of the voting public.
The way Britain was plunged into the uncertain scenario of a hung parliament was uncovered by researchers at Plymouth University who pointed to the Tories missing out in just 19 target constituencies.
Colin Rallings and Michael Thrasher said Mr Cameron came tantalisingly close to forming a government.
The directors at the university’s elections’ centre wrote: ‘Cameron came so near and yet so far.
‘Just 16,000 extra votes for the Tories, distributed in the 19 constituencies in which the party came closest to winning, would have spared us a weekend of negotiation and speculation.’

She added: ‘This scandal must not be lost in all the current speculation about a new government, and the relevant authorities cannot be left to investigate themselves.
To add to the shame, even official election monitors from Kenya and war-torn Sierra Leone were so shocked by what they saw on polling day that they described the British system as a 'recipe for corruption'.
They said that a lack of proper identity checks at polling stations and voters being turned away meant that our electoral system was highly vulnerable to corruption.
Marie Marilyn Jalloh, and MP from Sierra Leone, told the Sunday Times: 'There has to be some doubt over the legitimacy of the result.
'Where people have been disenfranchised of cases of fraud are found there should be another vote. In My country this would be very controversial.
'Your system is a recipe for corruption; it was a massive shock when I saw ou didn't need any identification to vote. In Sierra Leone you need an identity card and also neeed to give your fingerprint.
'Here you need nothing. In this respect, our own system is more secure than yours.'
Anyone who feels they were denied their fundamental right to vote should contact us urgently. Liberty will use all legal and campaigning means to ensure that this disgrace is never repeated.’
Polling stations in London, Sheffield, Manchester, Birmingham, Liverpool, Newcastle and Leeds were caught out by a late turnout of voters.
Some turned people away when polls closed at 10pm, while others allowed lock-ins to enable people to vote after the deadline.
In Hackney, London, angry would-be voters staged a sit-in when polls closed. In his Sheffield Hallam constituency, Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg went to offer his apologies to frustrated voters at a polling station after they queued for more than three hours.
Doors were closed on 200 potential voters in Ladybarn in Manchester, while in Liverpool, voters were left waiting when one polling station ran out of ballot papers.

Geoffrey Robertson QC has said that people denied the right to vote could sue for compensation and get 'at least £750'
Responsibility for the organisation of elections rests with returning officers, who are council chief executives. Those in charge of areas that saw the worst chaos are all on six-figure salaries.
John Mothersole, the £181,000 boss of Sheffield City Council, apologised to hundreds of voters who queued for hours in vain.
Birmingham’s chief executive Stephen Hughes, who is paid £200,000 a year, was similarly penitent and promised an investigation.
Other returning officers on the list of shame include Manchester’s Sir Howard Bernstein (£199,056), Liverpool’s Colin Hilton (£227,500) and Hackney’s Tim Shields (£112, 956).
A spokesman for Solace – the Society of Local Authority Chief Executives – admitted that mistakes were made but said Ms Watson’s criticism had been unhelpful.
David Monks, chief executive of Huntingdonshire District Council, said a late surge in voters was one factor, but argued that extra staffing at polling stations would not have helped because each station had just one register, with one person ticking off names.

More...
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Anger of student voters put into the 'slow queue'
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Gordon Brown loses solo role in Cenotaph ceremony 'demotion'
MAIL ON SUNDAY COMMENT: Brown has lost. So has Clegg. We need a new government. By tonight
LIZ JONES: Retirement is overrated - just ask the tireless (and dishy) Mr Dimbleby
JAMES FORSYTH: They were sure they had it in the bag - even after the exit poll came in
TIM MONTGOMERIE: Remember who deserves the last dance, Dave
He said part of the blame was due to a high number of new returning officers with little or no experience in running elections. ‘It is not something you can learn from a book,’ he added.
Of the row sparked by Ms Watson’s comments, he said: ‘I am not interested in trading blows with the Electoral Commission. There’s no need to kick people when they are down; that is not right.’

Voters queue round the block in Newcastle at 9.45
Ms Watson was appointed to her job in January last year by the Speakers’ Committee of senior MPs. She has also worked for Victim Support and was chairman of the ‘gender equality’ group, The Fawcett Society.
Asked why there had been so many voting problems, she said: ‘This is a significant concern.
They [the returning officers] will have to answer to us and they will have to answer to the local voters. They should have put extra staff on and got extra ballot papers if they were running out.
‘It’s largely a legacy of the Victorian era. It’s not sensible to have a system that was designed when five million people were eligible to vote.’
However, her excuse was met with widespread derision, with many pointing out that the system had coped perfectly well in the past, and with a higher turnout.
Human rights lawyer Geoffrey Robertson QC has said that people denied the right to vote could sue for compensation, and could get ‘at least £750’.
The Election was monitored by a group of observers from countries including Rwanda, Bangladesh, Sierra Leone and Nigeria.
Among the delegates was Lisa Hanna, a Jamaican MP and former Miss World, who said she was shocked by the voting fiasco.
She told The Mail on Sunday: ‘It’s unfortunate when someone is standing in a line for their own democracy and are turned away.’
Why election officials are a law unto themselves
By Heather Brooke
Anyone trying to find out what preparations were made for Thursday’s General Election would have encountered a wall of silence from the public officials in charge.
I know because I made these enquiries last year. I wanted to know how local councils were registering people to vote and whether the number was going up or down and why.
I wanted to know if there was any truth to a Data Sharing Review instigated by the Cabinet Office that stated voter registration was down due to worries that marketing companies would get voters’ names from the electoral role and send junk mail.
The review recommended scrapping the publicly available electoral roll so only state officials and some private companies could access it. The Government took up this recommendation and there is a consultation in place to abolish it.

Nick Clegg and his wife Miriam Gonzalez Durantez arrive at the Bents Green Methodist Church in Sheffield to cast their votes in the UK general election
This is of great concern. In a democracy it is essential that people can see who is registered to vote and where.
Why? Well for a start, officials rarely expose voter fraud, it is normally ordinary people or the Press – it was a reporter who found there was only one occupant at a Tower Hamlets address where eight Bengalis were registered to vote.
From my queries to local councils I discovered the recommendation to abolish the roll was based on fiction. Voter registration was not going down. This was made clear by the turnout at Thursday’s Election, up from 61.4 per cent in 2005 to 65.2 per cent.
But I discovered something more disturbing. The officials charged with compiling electoral registers and running elections were accountable to no one.
Local councils do not publish information about electoral preparations so it was only
by making Freedom of Information requests that I could get answers. I made requests to every council in the UK.
I received from them all a version of this response from the London Borough of Barnet: ‘The Electoral Registration Officers are not answerable to the Council in respect of their electoral responsibilities and duties, which are carried out in their own personal capacity.
An example of this is that the Register of Electors is deemed to be the property of the Electoral Registration Officer, not the local authority.’

David Cameron leaves a poling station with his wife Samantha after casting their votes in Witney, Oxfordshire
The councils also claimed any information held by the election officials relating to their duties was exempt from disclosure. This is clearly not acceptable. We should demand accountability from Electoral Registration Officers and Returning Officers.
Let’s look at the Electoral Commission, the so-called elections watchdog. Its chairwoman, Jenny Watson, says all the Commission can do is provide guidance to election officers; managing the elections is the responsibility of local election officers.
Guess who is responsible for monitoring the performance of these electoral officials? The Commission’s website states: ‘Electoral Registration Officers and Returning Officers are asked to assess themselves against the standards.’
There are supposedly sanctions against abuse. The law states that if an Electoral Registration Officer is found guilty of any act in breach of their official duty, they will be liable to a maximum fine of £5,000. But little if any monitoring is being done.
If the Electoral Commission is getting public money to ensure a competent election system it should have real powers to enforce standards.
If not, we have to ask what value for money are we getting from this toothless watchdog?
What we need is for election officers to come out of the shadows and be directly answerable to the people.
* Heather Brooke is author of The Silent State: Secrecy, Surveillance And The Myth Of British Democracy


Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/election/article-1275445/Election-2010-Is-wonder-vote-shambles.html#ixzz0nTmw32ej

Community investigation into 'referendum' about 'directly elected mayor' in Tower Hamlets: More details during Monday 10 May 2010

2335 Hrs GMT
London
Sunday
09 May 2010

Editor © Muhammad Haque


Community investigation into 'referendum' about 'directly elected mayor' in Tower Hamlets: More details during Monday 10 May 2010

[To be continued]

UPDATING on the biased role of 'East London Advertiser'. Complaint by the “NO’ campaign to Press Complaints Commission on Monday

2050 Hrs GMT London Saturday 08 May 2010.

Editor © Muhammad Haque.


The 'local' 'East London Advertiser' [ELA] [based in the inner city East London borough of Tower Hamlets, UK] failed to carry accurate and timely news about the campaign for a 'no' vote at the 6 May 2010 local referendum held about the future constitution of Tower Hamlets, London council. The ELA casually and tokenistically carried an item including the group picture of ex-mayors, shown to be opposing the change of the council into one where an elected mayor had the key powers. The BHANGEELAAR! Campaign is about to lodge complaints against the ela and other locally circulating 'media' over their bias for one side of the argument. The Bhangeelaar! Campaign is also lodging complaints against a satellite TV station that is supposedly aimed at the UK Bangladeshi community. Updates on those complaints and other actions by the Bhangeelaar! Campaign will be posted here in due course. AADHIKARonline publishes the following blog carrying late breaking stories on the campaign for a democratic Tower Hamlets Council:


http://notoundemocraticmayorintowerhamlets.blogspot.com

What is the 'secret' behind the disparity between the Council ward elections results and the 'result' of the referendum?

What is the 'secret' behind the disparity between the Council ward elections results and the 'result' of the referendum?

[To be continued]

Reminder to all 'NO' Vote campaigners of the need to send the evidence of wrongdoing on the referendum about a directly elected mayor in the borough

2315 Hrs GMT
London
Friday
07 May 2010

Editor √ Muhammad Haque

Reminder to all 'NO' Vote campaigners of the need to send the evidence of wrongdoing on the referendum about a directly elected mayor in the borough

[To be continued]

Fight goes on for democratic, accountable diverse and dignified democracy at local and UK levels: Say "NO" to sleaze, corruption, lies and fraud

From the DAILY MAIL, London web site:


Treacherous Lib Dems and Cameron's massive risk
By PETER OBORNE
Last updated at 9:32 PM on 7th May 2010
Comments (0)
Add to My Stories
For days after the General Election of February 1974 the Tory Prime Minister Edward Heath clung on in Downing Street. He could not bear the idea of losing office.
Even though he had secured fewer seats than Harold Wilson, his Labour opponent, Heath hoped that a pact with the Liberal leader Jeremy Thorpe, later to be acquitted of conspiracy to murder his homosexual lover Norman Scott, would provide the solution to his problems.
Heath offered Thorpe the post of Home Secretary.
But after a weekend of supposedly secret and increasingly farcical negotiations, all talks broke down. With deep reluctance and total lack of grace, Heath was obliged to leave Downing Street.


Parallels: Gordon Brown is hanging on to the keys of No 10 - just like Edward Heath did in 1974
The abortive Lib/Tory pact was the prelude to the most disastrous and shameful period of British post-war history.
The stock markets crashed, and so did industrial production. There were violent riots in the streets and many public services broke down. Inflation soared out of control and the savings of many honest and hard-working people were destroyed.
There was talk of socialist revolution, while senior Army officers, intelligence officers and industrialists held secret talks to discuss the possibility of a military coup.
A second election, held in October 1974, did nothing to resolve the situation because it left the balance of political parties in the House of Commons unchanged.
In due course, the International Monetary Fund was called in to help Britain resolve her chronic problems. Not until Margaret Thatcher achieved an outright majority in 1979 was Britain able to secure effective political leadership.
This weekend, history is eerily repeating itself. Once again we have the spectacle of a Prime Minister refusing to accept electoral defeat.
Like Edward Heath, Gordon Brown is making the classic mistake of confusing his personal ambition with the national interest.



More from Peter Oborne...
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VIEW FULL ARCHIVE
Like Heath, Brown is trying to stay in Downing Street by striking a deal with the Liberal Democrats. And, as in 1974, political crisis has struck at a time of economic calamity.
The stockmarkets have fallen 10 per cent in the past week, while sterling is in freefall on the international currency exchanges. As in 1974 Britain faces a financial catastrophe.
It is impossible to overstate what a disaster the result of last Thursday's General Election has been for Britain. It means that alongside an economic crisis, we face political paralysis. One might call the situation a 'perfect storm'.
A second General Election is certain to be called within months, but, as in 1974, there is no guarantee that it will be bring clarity to what is in danger of becoming a desperate situation.
But there is also a more urgent short-term problem. Though Gordon Brown remains Prime Minister technically, and continues to occupy Downing Street, he has lost all authority.
If this political chaos is unresolved on Monday, the markets will turn inexorably on Britain, just as they have turned on Greece over the past few weeks.
So Britain has just two days to cobble together a short-term solution to our problems - or face financial meltdown. And yet Gordon Brown, like Edward Heath 36 years ago, is in no real position to provide the answer. He is profoundly unpopular and has been rejected by the electorate.
So this weekend the momentum lies with David Cameron.
It is true that he did not win an outright majority. Nevertheless, he has led the Conservative Party to one of the most famous triumphs in its history, adding well over 100 seats to the Tory representation in the Commons, a feat not achieved by any Tory leader for 80 years.

Opportunity: Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg is being wooed by both sides
Furthermore, it is worth bearing in mind that he scored a clear advantage of two million votes over Labour, scoring 36per cent of the popular vote against Gordon Brown's 29 per cent.
Had that situation been reversed, such is the gross unfairness of the British electoral system, Labour would today be boasting of an electoral triumph and a near three-figure parliamentary advantage over the Tories.
That is why this weekend everything rests on David Cameron, the 43-year-old Tory leader. Cameron is utterly unproven in high office, and has never even held a ministerial job.
Yet today he has been thrust into the heart of an economic and political crisis that will define his own destiny, and the future of Britain.
On top of that he is making vital decisions on the run, and with out the benefit of more than a few hours of snatched sleep. The first of his dilemmas was the biggest: should he offer to work with the Liberal Democrats.
It had always been Cameron's intention to avoid political entanglements. He had decided, in the event of a hung parliament, that the Conservatives would govern on their own.
If the Liberal Democrats chose to sabotage the Tories they would have to take the blame for bringing down this government, and the inevitable political instability that would follow.
But late on Thursday night, when the likelihood of a hung parliament became clearer, Cameron called a crisis meeting with his closest advisers.
They met again in Conservative headquarters early on Friday morning and the strategy became clear. It was essential to offer a deal to Nick Clegg. It would be disastrous for the national interest to act in any other way.
The rudiments of this deal were spelt out in a Press conference early yesterday afternoon. Cameron is offering much more than Nick Clegg can ever have expected: the possibility of Cabinet jobs, the prospect of electoral reform, and major concessions in key policy areas.
This strategy has massive risks. As Cameron is well aware he could spark a revolt inside the Conservative Party, many of whose most senior and influential-figures believe that the party could face electoral oblivion if proportional representation is introduced.

Opportunity: David Cameron spelled out his offer to Nick Clegg at a pres office yesterday afternoon. He is offering the possibility of Cabinet jobs, the prospect of electoral reform, and major concessions in key policy areas
Almost certainly he can deal with potential rebels in his own party. Much more dangerous is treachery from the Liberal Democrats themselves. The majority of the party is profoundly hostile to a Tory government.
The Lib Dems will play a waiting game. They will try to avoid responsibility for David Cameron's most unpopular decisions, and plot secretly with Labour for the most convenient tactical moment to bring down the Tories and precipitate an election that can be fought on their terms.
The most dangerous moment will most likely come this autumn, by which time the Labour Party will have found time to regroup and elect a new leader who can work more easily with the Liberal Democrats than Gordon Brown.
For his part, yesterday David Cameron acted honourably and sensibly. He acted as a national leader and future Prime Minister rather than a partisan figure driven by factional advantage.
He made the Liberal Democrats a generous offer - and Nick Clegg will damage himself gravely if he refuses it.
My bet is that David Cameron will find himself in Downing Street by Monday morning. He has already shown that he has the moral stature to be British Prime Minister. This is his moment of destiny.

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Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/election/article-1274938/UK-ELECTION-RESULTS-2010-Treacherous-Lib-Dems-Camerons-massive-risk.html#ixzz0nHXq3yrd

Barking and Dagenham said 'NO' to attempted dictatorship, racism and the worst form of 'election'.. Margaret Hodge is in positive light, for a moment

Margaret Hodge smashes Nick Griffin in Barking and tells BNP: Get out and stay out
Pippa Crerar, City Hall Editor
07.05.10

Gallery: Election night's winners and losers
Election results: How London voted

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The BNP suffered a humiliating defeat in Barking as Labour stormed to victory with an increased vote.

Labour MP Margaret Hodge fought off the far-Right party's leader Nick Griffin in what she described as the “toughest battle of my life”.

The BNP, which was beaten into third place behind the Tories, is also understood to have lost most of its 12 seats on Barking & Dagenham council.

The disastrous result for the BNP, which saw its vote share drop by two per cent, immediately raised questions about Mr Griffin's future as leader.

As the election campaign progressed the party — whose campaign has been beset with infighting, abuse and violence — had started to think they could win the seat. The Gordon Brown “bigot” row was its high point.

However, Mrs Hodge held on to her seat with 24,628 votes; Tory Simon Marcus came second on 8,073 votes and the BNP third with 6,620 votes

Mrs Hodge said the people of Barking had “overwhelmingly” rejected the politics of hatred and prejudice.

“On behalf of the people of Britain, we in Barking have not just beaten, but we have smashed the attempts of extremist outsiders,” she said.

“The message from Barking to the BNP is clear — get out and stay out. You're not wanted here, and your vile politics have no place in British democracy. Tomorrow you're going to lose councillors and tomorrow we're giving you a clear message — pack your bags and go.”

Mr Griffin said: “Within the next five years the indigenous people of London will be in a minority in our own capital city. This is a wake-up call not just for London, but a wake-up call for the whole of Britain.”

Asked whether he would resign, he replied: “I'll leave the leadership of the BNP when my members ask me to.”

Labour started off the campaign convinced that Mr Griffin was only standing to boost the BNP's profile. However, the slump in Labour support nationally combined with reports from the doorstep that the BNP was doing well led to fears Mrs Hodge could lose the seat.

Until the last moment Labour activists were warning the biggest political earthquake in modern British history could take place.

There were serious concerns the BNP could seize Barking and Dagenham council. The final council result will be announced later today.

But when Mrs Hodge, 65, entered the count at Goresbrook Leisure centre in Barking just after midnight it was clear she had heard good news.

“I think we've smashed them,” she confided. “My tellers say we've done quite well.”

BNP activists wandered listlessly round the count. Mr Griffin's grim-faced minders told the Standard that he was not doing press interviews.

By 2am a despondent Mr Griffin conceded defeat, blaming it on high voter turnout. “I'm being realistic,” he told us. “Margaret Hodge is clearly going to hold the seat. The real prize has always been the council.”

Dozens of police surrounded the venue in case trouble boiled over between BNP supporters and anti-fascist campaigners. However, the night passed without incident.

Labour MP Jon Cruddas held neighbouring Dagenham and Rainham with 17,813 votes to the Tories' 15,183 in a contest that did not declare until after 6am.


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Reader views (25) Add your view
By the way, Veritas Noire, further to what "jonathan montmorency" wrote, Purley today looks similar to Croydon twenty years ago. ...And see what's happened HERE!
Just thought you might like to know.

- Croyboy, Croydon, UK, 07/05/2010 16:33
Report abuse

I used to love shouting thru Nick Griffins letterbox "Mr Griffin! Come quickly! A race war has just broken outside on the street!" Then watching his pudgy, eager little face come scampering up to the window. Ha Ha, used to crack me up everytime!
PS: What a bunch of jokers LOL

- Slig, North London, 07/05/2010 15:50
Report abuse

@ Martin, Teddington

It is an IT thingy and not meant to be impersonal.

You will find it a lot on Twitter and stems from the emailing system someone '@' somewhere.

Just one of those unwritten formalities like UPPER CASE letters indicates shouting ~ ALAN!

- Frank, Home Counties, England, 07/05/2010 14:51
Report abuse

When did this '@' business start? You speak 'to' people, not at them. Why do forums always descend into lowest-common-denominator crass abuse? We are lucky to have these resources, for our views to be heard. Don't treat them like dogs fouling their street corners.

- Martin, Teddington, 07/05/2010 14:15
Report abuse

hopefully this will be the last of that odious little toad, and the knuckle scraping benefit rejects who supported him.

- scotty, london, 07/05/2010 13:58
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However, Mrs Hodge held on to her seat with 24,628 votes: All imported from third world countries and Labours master plan to force mutlicultrusim upon us and stay in remain in power. Disapoited to say the least that she was not kicked out, anything but Labour at thius point. Pompus woman has no idea about the problems in the area.

- Barking Mad, East London, UK, 07/05/2010 13:54
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Well done to Nick and co. for giving it a go all the same.

- Verita bianchi, London, 07/05/2010 13:33
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One of the small comforts from last night was the total humiliation of the odious Griffin.
Well done the people of Barking, you stood up for decency and democracy.
And i hear that the BNP also lost most of their council seats, good.

- Kerry, Purley, 07/05/2010 13:29
Report abuse

Disappointed

- Vlad, Barking, 07/05/2010 13:25
Report abuse

I wonder if it was that great comedy sketch - 'The BNP Party Political Broadcast' - that was the final nail in the coffin ?

- Sanjay, Hounslow, UK, 07/05/2010 12:28
Report abuse

BNP are already +1.2% so more people are voting for them how ever you look at it

- Dal, Bromley, 07/05/2010 12:24
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Oh dear Oh dear Oh dear. Whatever happened to good old British sportsmanship, congratulating the winners (and no gloating please) and taking one's own defeat with grace and equanimity (and a determination to fight again)? The vicious and unsporting comments here make me despair.
As for Munaffer; do learn proper English matey (England is where you live after all) before commenting.

- seraphina, London UK, 07/05/2010 11:44
Report abuse

6600 people in Barking put a cross for a bunch of thicko's who couldn't organise a p1$$ up in a brewery.....

Alas, DemocraZy has spoken, the right wing meat heads have lost but still nothing to celebrate for from the ones who won!

- Decency, London, UK, 07/05/2010 11:14
Report abuse

The damn GOOD and Jolly GOOD. And ofcourse "GOOD RIDDEN" Well done British.It is absolutely correct...Pack your bags and get out then get lost in the hell, YOU bigoted , hatred inciters and prejudices Griffins and the clowns.
You all have no place in the British public and the politics. STOP now or will be stopped by publics

- Munaffer, London, 07/05/2010 10:38
Report abuse

@ Veritas

My boys? OK then, let your prejudice out. Ironically something you condemn the BNP for!
___________________________________________________

@ Sanjay

Amazing how you seem to know who I voted for? Can you use your powers to predict the lottery numbers?

- Frank, Home Counties, England, 07/05/2010 10:17
Report abuse

Good to see the smug grin wiped off of Griffin's face at last.

- Nowan, London, 07/05/2010 10:11
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Did Margaret Hodge say "get out and stay out"

She certainly had the last laugh.

- Rob, London, 07/05/2010 09:59
Report abuse

@ Jonathan, what's wrong mate? Still in your Hitler pyjamas and crying into your Griffin poster? There, there, diddums.

By the way, Purley is a stunning place to live. Work a bit harder and you may just be able to afford a house on my road. Mind you, we are very picky about out neighbours. No bigots allowed! Oh well. Unlucky. Ha ha ha

@ Frank, your boys crashed and burned as well, quite literally. Never mind. Just carry on being bitter. I sense you enjoy it.

@ Mark. Have one on me.

@ James, Sanjay - spot on lads.

- Veritas Noire, Purley, 07/05/2010 09:56
Report abuse

Ms Hodge said - addressing the BNP - "Pack your bags and go."
...But it's strange that Ms Hodge seems to have great difficulty in saying the same thing to all the illegal immigrants here.
Why, I wonder?

- Croyboy, Croydon, UK, 07/05/2010 09:36
Report abuse

Yipee! The only good news from this Election fiasco! Common sense prevails... the thugs are OUT! Thank you to the decent / sensible voters!

Frank@ Surprised you have anything to say this morning... thought you had it all sussed... what happened mate :-)?!

- Sanjay, Hounslow, UK, 07/05/2010 09:27
Report abuse

Mr Griffin will return to fight again, and "truthfully black" will be able to email another pathetic criticism of free speech... on another tack, I can remember when Purley was a nice place to live in...

- jonathan montmorency, cooden, uk, 07/05/2010 09:23
Report abuse

Now that the the decent people in Dagenham and Barking have completely reject this vile little bigot, perhaps now we can go back to treating him as he deserves - completely ignoring him?

- James, London, 07/05/2010 09:12
Report abuse

@ Veritas Noire, Purley

I am a little disappointed in you. Did you really think people were going to vote for the BNP?

I think it exposes your own prejudices.

- Frank, Home Counties, England, 07/05/2010 09:12
Report abuse

VN,

I just knew you would be the first person to post on this thread! Sounds like you have a glass or two yourself

Still you cannot knock the fact that because of the rise in popularity of the BNP (increased no. of voters) Labour belatedly introduced tougher immigration criteria, which although to little to late, is welcomed by most.

- Mark (will never vote Labour again), South East London, 07/05/2010 09:03
Report abuse

So, what went wrong all you BNP supporters out there? Too lazy or drunk to get off your sofas? Couldn't get out of that meeting with your parole officer? You were going to win this seat, weren't you? Ha ha ha ha ha ha!

The good people of Barking have spoken and you have been absolutely crushed! The Nazis have been given a hiding - yet again! Your campaign wasn't worth spit! Ha ha ha ha ha!

To paraphrase a famous commentator: Griffin, Hitler, Terrablanche, Satan - your boys have taken one hell of a beating, your boys have taken one hell of a beating!

Ha ha ha ha ha!

- Veritas Noire, Purley, 07/05/2010 08:12
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Well done to all backers of the 'NO' campaign who have got in as councillors [so far]?

1655 Hrs GMT
London
Friday
07 May 2010


Editor © Muhammad Haque



Well done to all backers of the 'NO' campaign who have got in as councillors [in results announced so far] in Tower Hamlets?

[Full results in due course here]

AADHIKAR evidential citation: Andrew Gilligan making inaccurate and confusing references to the directly elected mayor bid in Tower Hamlets

The following is taken from the DAILY TELEGRAPH web site:


By permitting fraud we betray democracy
The increase in postal-vote fraud is an urgent and dangerous issue, argues Andrew Gilligan.

By Andrew Gilligan
Published: 10:00PM BST 06 May 2010
Comments 11 | Comment on this article

A voter places a ballot paper in the ballot box at the polling station at Market Hall in Swadlincote, Derbyshire Photo: PA
At the European elections, less than a year ago, the electoral roll of the London Borough of Tower Hamlets contained 148,970 names. By January this year, it had shot up to 160,278. And in the past month alone, a further 5,000 new names have mysteriously appeared on the voting lists.
There are only two possibilities here. Either Tower Hamlets is growing twice as fast as the fastest-growing city in China, or it is the target of massive and systematic electoral fraud. We can have a guess at the answer from the fact that some three-bedroom flats in the borough appear to have 12 adults on the roll. The real occupants, when approached on the doorstep, have never heard of their 10 new flatmates.

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Elections in Tower Hamlets have always been a scandal. In 2006, an entire tower block had its postal votes stolen. But this time it's more serious. In a close election, Tower Hamlets – and other places like it – could help tip the balance of power. And there are now rather too many other places like it, with dozens of police inquiries under way in inner-city seats across the country. At the time of writing, I don't know how Britain has voted. But under some scenarios, the real and frightening possibility is that this election was decided by fraud.
There are local factors, too. As the Telegraph has documented, the Islamic Forum of Europe, a radical Islamist group based at the hardline East London Mosque, has been accused of secretly infiltrating the Tower Hamlets Labour Party – and is seeking to consolidate its control by having the borough run by a directly elected mayor. A referendum on the mayoral proposal was also held yesterday.
I have no evidence that the IFE is behind the fraud in Tower Hamlets. But its favoured candidates have done remarkably well lately. At the last London mayoral election, Ken Livingstone, for whom leading members of the IFE vigorously campaigned, saw his share of the vote in one ward rise from 29.6 per cent to a rather improbable 68.1 per cent.
The problem is simple. Panicked by falling turnout, Labour allowed postal voting on demand. But a postal vote is a thousand times easier to rig than a vote cast in person. At a polling station, you need a different body for each fake voter. With a postal vote, all you need is a different envelope, and perhaps not even that.
Non-existent electors are only the half of it. By all but abolishing the secrecy of the ballot, postal voting opens the door to threats, pressure and outright vote-buying. If you vote in a polling station, nobody can make you show them your ballot paper. Nobody can know if you've obeyed orders or not.
Worst of all, though, is that the authorities don't seem to care. Police inquiries seldom get anywhere. After the 2006 scandals, one minister said that allegations of electoral fraud risked "undermining confidence". In the most dishonest press release I have ever seen, the Islamist-influenced Tower Hamlets council claimed that an election tribunal had found "no evidence of electoral fraud in Tower Hamlets". Actually, the judge ruled that there was "clear, prima facie evidence" for it.
Our rulers have tiptoed round this subject because voting fraud is mostly a problem – for now – in Asian areas. But what they're actually saying, if you think about it, is that it's all right for Asians to have their votes stolen – not a view that most Asian voters would share.
To avoid "undermining confidence" in democracy itself, we need change. For future elections, postal voting on demand should be suspended in Tower Hamlets, in Birmingham, in the Northern mill towns and anywhere else where problems arise. Nobody in these places is more than a short walk from a polling station. If we do not act, we are effectively in league with the
vote-stealers.
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COMMENTS: 11
POSTAL VOTING should be stopped with the exception of overseas citizens who are entitled to vote and those who are too ill or infirm to get to the polling stations in person.
As a young woman I can remember that ALL the parties made great efforts to make sure that those who could not get to the polling station were collected in cars etc. to cast their vote.
This fact alone became a source of humour for the media but there was a very serious side to this practice and it should be revived in today's political polling booths.
madamd
on May 07, 2010
at 07:28 AM
Report this comment
Is there one group who seem to be mostly responsible for this fraud? Methodists, Mormons, The Amish perhaps? Or possibly, the one group we're not allowed to talk about for fear of getting our heads chopped off or a visit from plod.
Willy
on May 07, 2010
at 03:35 AM
Report this comment
Tim Barton

"Alternatively we could just go back to the old system whereby postal voting was the preserve of the Forces and (if I remember correctly) embassy staff."

Quite, it wasn't broken until Labour fixed it.
Simple Sailor
on May 07, 2010
at 02:35 AM
Report this comment
Major postal fraud is new to Britain under New Labour. New Labour, Old Stalinists, not orignal Labour.
cyndi
on May 07, 2010
at 01:30 AM
Report this comment
the rancid stench hanging over this election just gets worse and worse.

postal vote fraud, bare-faced dishonesty and ineffectual, inconclusive beaurocracy as a response; voters locked out of polling booths, polling booths running out of papers; Our whole system seems to be in complete disarray.

There would furthermore seem to be a quite realistic prospect of both sides claiming to have some version of a "win on points"

if Gordon Brown and Labour have the utter, brazen effrontery to attempt to cling to office, our system will be completely discredited and the subsequent, inevitable election within a year, a farce
ben arnulfssen
on May 07, 2010
at 12:59 AM
Report this comment
Voting in the UK. What a shambles!! Pencils on string, no checking id.
Perhaps voting should be compulsory, with a box on the ballot paper to opt out should you wish, and ballot papers should only be issued on presentation of two forms of identification.
Polly
on May 07, 2010
at 12:54 AM
Report this comment
No serious change will be made to the widespread fraud of postal voting whilst parties, especially the Labour party, look at it as a convenient way to gerrymander seats. By dealing with a few "community leaders" and promising them what they want the few hundred votes required in a marginal can be obtained. This has been especially prevelant in local body elections in the North West. Since this form of politics doesn't tend to favour the conservatives, should they win tonight, they should return the rules to proving that you will be out of your constituancy on the day of voting. The registration of thousands of new voters just goes to show that the home office has lost all control of it's ability to confirm who exists in the country, in the first 100 days the conservatives should look to emplace a general audit of the population with resulting clarification of who is who. If the Normans were able to do this in 1066, it shouldn't be beyond the Civil service of 2010. This will allow a clearer picture of what has happened since 1997 and what, if anything, needs to be done to prevent the home office losing control of its ability control the registration and verify the bono fides of the general public again. Jack Straws first act as Home Secretary in 1997 was to remove the primary purpose provision for British residency through mariage. If Jack Straw saw lessening the controls as a good thing for Labour it follows that it is a point of urgency for an incomming Conservative administration to review this.
stu
on May 06, 2010
at 11:02 PM
Report this comment
For an overseas postal vote why not demand a Passport number?
This is all very disturbing but if you let so many people have naturalisation for so little input; what do you expect?
Labour is corrupt at both a local and national level.
Merchantman
on May 06, 2010
at 10:42 PM
Report this comment
Having never had a postal vote I am unsure how it works. I would expect the ballot paper to be sent to my address where I could fill it in and send it back.

If it was for someone I didn't know I would return it with questions asked or destroy it.

If it never arrived then I would conclude that it had been intercepted by someone at the Royal Mail and expect the police to investigate there.

Or does the council deliver the ballot papers?
ian
on May 06, 2010
at 10:28 PM
Report this comment
Alternatively we could just go back to the old system whereby postal voting was the preserve of the Forces and (if I remember correctly) embassy staff.
Tim Barton
on May 06, 2010
at 10:24 PM
Report this comment
Are you opening a book on how many of these fraud investigations are into Labour party affiliates?
Bionic Raspberry
on May 06, 2010
at 10:24 PM
Report this comment

UK SOCIALIST PARTY says: Tower Hamlets mayoral referendum: directly elected mayor isn’t a good idea!

Posted 5 May 2010 at 15:39 GM

Tower Hamlets mayoral referendum

Would having an 'executive Mayor' be more democratic than the way Tower Hamlets council is run at the moment? George Galloway's Respect has successfully triggered a referendum on introducing a mayor who would be elected by the whole borough, claiming this would be more accountable than having just the current councillors.

Tower Hamlets' current 'leader and cabinet' system allows a small minority of councillors to make decisions which are then presented to the full council to be rubber-stamped.

However, despite the enormous faults of the existing system, having a directly elected mayor with executive powers would be even less democratic.

Accountability
New Labour and the Tories have supported the introduction of directly elected mayors in some councils, with the result that democratic accountability in local government has been reduced. This is an aping of the US system, where many cities are run by 'big personality' mayors, supervised only by elected boards who meet once a year to hand out contracts for public services to private providers.

It is far easier in such a system for one person to take unpopular decisions to cut or privatise services, or to favour business interests, than to win support for such policies amongst a wider group of councillors who know they will have to justify themselves to a specific ward area of local voters.

Lewisham is one of only 12 councils out of 376 in England and Wales with an executive mayor. The Tower Hamlets 'Yes For Mayor' campaign has produced a leaflet interviewing Lewisham mayor, Sir Steve Bullock, on the 'great success' of the system there.

It doesn't mention that Bullock was elected with the votes of just 12.4% of the electorate, one out of every eight voters. Nor that when New Labour's plan to demolish the popular Ladywell Leisure Centre was defeated by a large community campaign (supported by Lewisham's Socialist Party councillors), and a Lewisham council meeting eventually voted to abandon the demolition, Steve Bullock still had the power to override the councillors' decision if he had chosen to do so. How is that 'more democratic'?

Campaigning for a directly-elected mayor in Tower Hamlets is a mistake when it comes to defending democracy within local government. The real route to local democracy is to argue for elected councillors, who are fully accountable and subject to recall by those who elected them.

It also requires building a working-class political alternative that can not only challenge the main parties for control of councils, but involve the local community and trade unions in implementing real socialist policies - like the Poplar councillors in the 1920s and Liverpool city council in the 1980s.

See www.liverpool47.org for further information.

EXCLUSIVE: Tower Hamlets Council [Labour Group of Councillors] leader admits he has been knowingly breaching the agreed policy to back the 'NO' Vote!

Exclusive report and commentary by BHANGEELAAR! The campaign for a ‘NO’ vote on the referendum question about the future constitution of Tower Hamlets Council:


Tower Hamlets Council [Labour Group of Councillors] leader admits he has been knowingly breaching the agreed policy to back the 'NO' Vote


1608 [1545] Hrs GMT
London
Thursday
06 May 2010
By © Muhammad Haque

The current leader of the East London Borough of Tower Hamlets Council, Lutfur Rahman has admitted to me in the past hour that the ruling Labour Group had indeed decided as group policy on the referendum on the mayor to back the ‘NO’ vote.

This raises a number of serious questions. Including the one about the boastful item in the latest glossy [4-page] propaganda sheet being distributed in Tower Hamlets by the ‘YES’ vote side.

The first question is about their claim that the ‘NO’ campaign had used Lutfur Rahman’s picture as part of a ‘dirty trick’ for the NO campaign in a recent leaflet.

If the ruling Group, of which Lutfur Rahman remains leader today [polling and ‘referendum-about-a-mayor-or--not’ day Thursday 06 May 2010], decided on a policy then it follows that the decision would be attributed to the Group’s leader at the time of reference as the identifiable figurehead for the Group.

How could that be ‘dirty’?

How could that even be a trick?

That is simply stating the obvious truth of the matter.

We have published, following the 'NO' campaign’s 11 April 2010 meeting held in Bethnal Green, a series of questions about Lutfur Rahman’s conduct, role and signals on this issue.

We have also asked Lutfur Rahman’s office on the Tower Hamlets Council to answer questions by contacting us.

He admitted today that he did not make contacts and for that he apologised.

So, who is playing dirty here?

Those who have been responsible for publishing the propaganda for a 'YES' vote ought to look at the evidence before they mount insulting attacks on the ‘NO’ vote side.

They would do very well to remember what I said when I addressed the campaigners outside the Brady centre on 6 February 2010.

I said, loudly, clearly and on more than one occasion that we are one community and the ‘referendum’; on the mayor’ question is only a small issue. And it had two aspects to it. By those things I meant to convey the view that we were entitled to campaign on legitimate issues without our campaign being misinterpreted or treated as a hostile act.

We shall continue to defend the community and campaign for the establishment of a democratic council in the Borough regardless of what or who attacks our community and or our local institutions whether those institutions are already functioning in a democratic, accountable and diverse way or whether they need our help to achieve those goals. We DEFEND the community. A clear distinction between career and community does exist. It is worth pointing out to those who have taken our local community for granted for far too long! Vote 'NO' to that as well as voting 'NO' to an undemocratic, unaccountable mayor system in Tower Hamlets.

[To be continued]

Vote 'NO' to all forms of prejudice, denial of human rights and temporarily “join the applause” to the UK BNP's 'ex' director of ‘internet technolog

1840 Hrs GMT
London
Wednesday
05 May 2010

© AADHIKARonline 2010

Vote 'NO' to all forms of prejudice, denial of human rights and temporarily “join the applause” to the UK BNP's 'ex' director of ‘internet technology’!

[To be continued]

BNP in turmoil as online chief sabotages operation
Wed May 5


By Ian Dunt

The British National party's (BNP) beleaguered election campaign hit a new disaster today when its head of online operations quit the party and took the website with him.

Simon Bennett, directed traffic to his own website, where he posted an outspoken attack on the party and its leadership, the Times reported today.

Mr Bennett suggested the party was disorganised, amateurish and constantly wasting membership fees.

"This will no doubt [sic] come as a shock to many of those that read this, particularly those who really don't want to hear it," he wrote.

"However, I have a duty to the members and my conscience, but most of all to my wife and children, to tell the truth behind the spin."

The website was briefly down yesterday afternoon before it was reactivated, but the comments quickly spread across the web.

Party leader Nick Griffin and election fundraiser James Dowson w e re branded "pathetic, desperate and incompetent" by Mr Bennett.

It is just the latest incident of infighting threatening to the derail the far-right party's general election campaign.

Mr Griffin himself recently informed police that someone in the organisation was trying to kill him.

The party was also damaged when it used an image of Marmite on an online broadcast, leading the manufacturers to serve an injunction against it.

Mr Bennett said he warned the leadership not to proceed with the stunt, but was ignored. He claims to have been physically threatened over the website and insisted he would call the police if the threats continued.

Diversity champions Emma projected a Nazi symbol onto the side of the Commons last weekend to warn voters of the danger of backing the far-right party in tomorrow's election.

Vote 'NO' to inaccurate 'local media' conduct. The Wharf introduces 'a new candidate' or at least a 'new name'

1830 Hrs GMT
London
Wednesday
05 May 2010

Editor © Muhammad Haqued

Vote 'NO' to inaccurate 'local media' conduct. The Wharf introduces 'a new candidate' or at least a 'new name'

The Wharf website, [supposed to be a 'news outfit' owned by the Mirror Group], which typifies the takeover culture of and fronted via the Canary Wharf sited in Tower Hamlets geographically and carrying out the agenda of the worst of the City of London and Big Business in its operation, ‘introduces’ in its list of candidates for election to Tower Hamlets Council [Thursday 06 May 2010] a name that translates to ‘TWO-faced’ in one of the languages that the candidate can be linked with! Now, why has George Galloway’s Party fielded a candidate with such a name? If That Party has done that all!

[To be continued]

From the web site of the Wharf, London 05 May 2010:

The Wharf's election preview
By Simon Hayes on May 5, 2010 10:34 AM | Tagged with: General Election, Greenwich, local elections, Newham, politics, Tower Hamlets
As everyone knows by now, tomorrow is polling day, but as well as the General Election there will be a plethora of local council seats to be contested in Tower Hamlets, Newham and Greenwich.

It promises to be a tense couple of days, with many pundits predicting a hung parliament.

There has been a lot of focus on the new, and marginal, constituency of Poplar and Limehouse, where sitting MP Jim Fitzpatrick will face stiff opposition from Respect MP George Galloway and the Conservative's Tim Archer.

There will also be a Mayoral election in Newham, while Tower Hamlets will have a referendum on whether to adopt a directly-elected mayor system of its own.

These are the people who are standing for election in the constituencies and wards in the areas around Canary Wharf. Polling stations are open from 7am to 10pm, so don't forget to vote.

Abbreviations used: BNP = British National Party, Cons = Conservative, CPA = Christian Peoples Alliance, EngDem = English Democrats, G = Green, Ind = Independent, Lab = Labour, LibDem = Liberal Democrat, NF = National Front, Resp = Respect, TUSC = Trade Unionist & Socialist Coalition, UKIP = UK Independence Party.

TOWER HAMLETS:

Parliamentary election:
Poplar & Limehouse:
Tim Archer (Con)
Jim Fitzpatrick (Lab)
Jonathan Fryer (LibDem)
George Galloway (Resp)
Mohammed Hoque (Ind)
Wayne Lochner (UKIP)
Kabir Mahmud (Ind)
Andrew Osborne (EngDem)
Chris Smith (G)
Jim Thornton (Ind)

Council elections (selected wards only):

Blackwall & Cubitt Town:
Tim Archer (Con)
Martin Carr (LibDem)
Gulam Choudhury (Resp)
Peter Golds (Con)
Freda Graf (LibDem)
John Griffiths (LibDem)
Wais Islam (Lab)
Abdul Malik (Resp)
Kathy McTasney (Lab)
Mohammed Rahman (Resp)
Gloria Thienel (Con)
Crissy Townsend (Lab)

East India & Lansbury:
Asha Affi (Resp)
Abdul Ahmed (Lab)
Rajib Ahmed (Lab)
Zak Ali (LibDem)
Martin Coxall (Con)
Iqbal Hossain (LibDem)
Kamrul Hussain (Resp)
Zakir Hussain (Resp)
Paul Ingham (Con)
Shiria Khatun (Lab)
Ahmed Mustaque (Con)
James Searle (BNP)
Zillur Uddin (LibDem)
Jamie Upton (Green)

Limehouse:
Jennifer Aaron-Foster (Green)
Anfor Ali (Resp)
Craig Aston (Con)
Lutfa Begum (Lab)
Faruk Chowdhury (LibDem)
Graham Collins (Con)
Louise Davies (Green)
Simon Earp (Green)
David Edgar (Lab)
Sakib Ershad (Con)
Victoria Obaze (Lab)
Hafizur Rahman (LibDem)
Muazzam Rakol (LibDem)
Hafiza Salam (Resp)
Duala Uddin (Resp)

Millwall:
Dave Anderson (BNP)
Shiuly Begum (Resp)
John Cray (Lab)
Zara Davis (Con)
John Denniston (LibDem)
Muzibul Islam (Resp)
George McFarlane (LibDem)
Maium Miah (Con)
Kevin Ovenden (Resp)
Iain Porter (LibDem)
David Snowdon (Con)
Doros Ullah (Lab)
Garry Wykes (Lab)

There will also be a referendum about whether to adopt a directly elected mayor in the borough.

For all wards and more information visit towerhamlets.gov.uk.

NEWHAM:

Parliamentary election:

East Ham:
Chris Brice (LibDem)
Judy Maciejowska (G)
Barry O'Connor (EngDem)
Paul Shea (Con)
Mark Sims (Pirate Party)
Stephen Timms (Lab)

West Ham:
Grace Agbogun-Toko (Ind)
Lyn Brown (Lab)
Michael Davidson (NF)
Stan Gain (CPA)
Kim Gandy (UKIP)
Jane Lithgow (G)
Kamran Malik (Ind)
Virginia Morris (Con)
Martin Pierce (LibDem)

Borough Mayor election candidates:
Maria Allen (Con)
Alan Craig (CPA)
Kamran Malik (KM Communities Welfare Party)
Chikwe Mkemnacho (Ind)
Sir Robin Wales (Lab)

Council elections (selected wards only).

Custom House:
Anup Banik (Con)
Emily Bijl (Con)
Scott Gamble (CPA)
Patricia Holland (Lab)
Conor McAuley (Lab)
Jamie McKenzie (Con)
Gavin Pearson (Lab)
Gillian Roberts (CPA)
Kayode Shedowo (CPA)
Linda Whichelow (LibDem)

Royal Docks:
Steve Brayshaw (Lab)
Lionel Etan-Adollo (Con)
Tony McAlmont (Lab)
Pat Murphy (Lab)
Neil Pearce (Con)
Francis Perry (CPA)
Benjamin Stafford (CPA)
Jennifer Thomas (CPA)
Cloey Wong (Con).

For all wards and candidates visit newham.gov.uk.

GREENWICH:

Parliamentary election:

Greenwich & Woolwich:
Spencer Drury (Con)
Andy Hewett (Green)
Onay Kasab (TUSC)
Joseph Lee (LibDem)
Nick Raynsford (Lab)
Lawrence Rustem (BNP)
Raden Wresniwiro (EngDem)

For council election candidates visit greenwich.gov.uk.

Vote "NO" to all egomaniacs on 6 May 2010. Make sure to stop a 'Manish Sood’ surfacing in Tower Hamlets as an 'elected mayor'!

From:

LYNN NEWS , Norfolk England 04 May 2010



MANISH SOOD: He wants to lead Labour party

Manish Sood - has caused a stir.



Published Date: 04 May 2010
NORTH-West Norfolk Labour candidate Manish Sood has told BBC News he could do the Labour leadership job better than Gordon Brown - though has himself now been attacked for being a "dreadful" candidate.
In an exclusive interview with the Lynn News, Mr Sood hit out at Mr Brown, calling him "the worst PM ever", and also said he believed the increase in immigration was making the country "bigger and messier".

In a subsequent interview with the BBC, Mr Sood was asked who should be Labour leader then.

Mr Sood replied: "I think I could do a better job than him. He's just making things worse and worse and worse."

If he (Mr Brown) couldn't do the job, then he should "go on holiday" and give him (Mr Sood) "a chance to take over".

Meanwhile, Mr Sood has been attacked by David Collis, chairman of the North West Norfolk Constituency Labour Party, who said that he did not represent their views.

Mr Collins told the BBC: "Manish has been divorced from this campaign for some time, but clearly determined to get as much attention for himself as possible.

"Despite having such a dreadful candidate, loyal Labour members will continue to put the case for Gordon Brown as the best man to take Britain forward."

He added: "We are fully in support of Gordon Brown as leader of our party and of the excellent campaign he is running."

Link to BBC.

Meanwhile, Mr Sood has told Sky things were going "totally wrong", adding the average person had lost respect for the government and things were "moving towards anarchy".

Sky's political correspondent Niall Paterson, who is on the campaign trail with Mr Brown, said one senior Labour source described Mr Sood's behaviour as "bizarre".

"We've been told Labour have been trying to deselect him for quite some time, and it's been pointed out that he is a prospective parliamentary candidate in a seat which the Labour Party has very little hope of taking."

Link to Sky.

ITN have also referred to the Lynn News story, saying as if Mr Brown wasn't under enough pressure, he couldn't even, it seemed, rely on the support of some of his own party.

The comments were made during an ITN story today about tactical voting.

ITN link.


Page 1 of 1


-------


Lynn News exclusive explodes globally

Manish Sood



Published Date: 04 May 2010
TODAY'S Lynn News' exclusive front-page story about North-West Norfolk Labour candidate Manish Sood dubbing Gordon Brown "the worst prime minister Britain has ever had" has exploded in the national and international media.
In less than two hours of being on this website, the story has already had nearly 3,000 hits with interest from as far afield as India, Sweden, Norway, Denmark and Canada.

Reporter Sophie Wyllie - who wrote the story - has been interviewed by Sky, and is due to be interviewed by Anglia Television.

The BBC have also been running the story since early this morning, with the Lynn News newsdesk innundated with calls from national media and other publications.

Mr Sood (38), from Leicester, as well as criticising Mr Brown, has also said he believes the increase in immigration is making the country "bigger and messier", and some aspects of government are "corrupt".

He also wants to bring back the death penalty and thinks the Queen should have more respect and powers.

Read the full story below.

Vote "NO' to a directly elected mayor in the referendum on the subject on 6 May 2010 in Tower Hamlets

1240 Hrs GMT
London
Tuesday
04 May 2010

Editor © Muhammad Haque


Lance Price in effect echoed K. Livingstone who on 6 February [Brady Centre, Hanbury St] spoke offensively against the principle of a democratic local Council.

Mr Price is not the only one, of course, to betray [as in ‘exhibit’] that unattractive propensity of self-seeking which has been contaminating the environment around Norfolk north this morning.

It is a reference to Mr Sood!

He may well deserve to get sued!

And successfully sued at that as well!

Which takes us straight back to the Brady Centre in Hanbury Street as it was in the afternoon of 6 February 2010.

From that address, Ken Livingstone had launched his attack on the principle and the democratic usefulness of a local Council consisting of elected councillors retaining autonomous powers to contribute to the collective pro democratic, pro-accountability decisions of the Council.

Ken Livingstone significantly insulted the whole community when he misdescribed the Council and its decision-making process as ‘…backroom deals’. He compared an executive mayor favourably with that image of Tower Hamlets Council that he, Ken Livingstone, misportrayed.


[To be continued]

Lance Price in effect echoed K. Livingstone who on 6 February [Brady Centre, Hanbury St] spoke offensively against the principle of local democracy!

Lance Price in effect echoed K. Livingstone who on 6 February [Brady Centre, Hanbury St] spoke offensively against the principle of a democratic local Council

[To be continued]

Tony Blair's spin doctor Lance Price revives the prejudice against 'East End' of London ... Say 'NO' to such attitude, Vote 'NO' on Thursday

0950 Hrs GMT
London
Tuesday
04 May 2010
Editor © Muhammad Haque
Tony Blair's spin doctor Lance Price revives the prejudice against 'East End' of London ... Say 'NO' to such attitude, Vote 'NO' on Thursday...

[To be continued]

Tower Hamlets features in SKY NEWS report on voter fraud allegations.... VOTE ‘NO’ on Thursday to elected mayor in Tower Hamlets

FROM: SKY NEWS 04 May 2010



Police Investigate Postal Vote Fraud Claims



9:47am UK, Tuesday May 04, 2010
Ruth Barnett, Sky News Online
Police are looking into up to 50 allegations of election "irregularities" amid fears bogus names have been used to apply for postal votes.


In marginal seats, just a handful of votes could swing the result

The Metropolitan Police has confirmed 28 allegations have been made in London alone.
It is investigating five cases - four in Tower Hamlets and one in Ealing - and a further 23 claims are being "assessed".
Barking and Dagenham, Lambeth, Westminster, Enfield, Hounslow, Haringey, Ealing, Brent, Bexleyheath, Camden and Redbridge are among the London boroughs under scrunity.
According to the Daily Mail, concerns have also been raised with officers in Yorkshire and Derby.
Thursday's General Election could be the closest in nearly two decades, prompting concerns that electoral fraud in marginal seats could affect the result.

Local authorities have reported a surge in the number of applications for postal votes close to the April 20 deadline which meant not all of the requests could be fully investigated.
The rise could be down to voters feeling more engaged in this year's contest due to the close opinion polls and the televised leaders' debates, but there are fears fake names have been added to the database.
In the east London area of Tower Hamlets, officials received 5,166 new registrations just before the cut-off date and did not have time to check them all, the Daily Mail reports.
Some houses in the area have as many as nine adults registered as living at the address. Journalist Jerome Taylor says he was beaten up by a group of people when he asked locals about voter fraud.
There are two constituencies in Tower Hamlets, Bethnal Green and Bow, and Poplar and Limehouse, and both are marginal seats. George Galloway, who was the Respect MP for Bethnal Green and Bow, has moved to fight Labour's Jim Fitzpatrick in Poplar and Limehouse.

"The Metropolitan Police are examining 28 claims of major abuses across 12 boroughs - with four separate investigations in Tower Hamlets, East London.

FROM THE EVENING STANDARD web site dated 03 May 2005:

Postal vote fraud fears rise
By Ross Lydall and Sam Lyon, Evening Standard Last updated at 00:00am on 03.05.05



Fears of electoral vote fraud escalated today after an astonishing leap in the number of Londoners apparently voting by post.
A record one in five London electors have applied for postal votes, according to an Evening Standard survey.
The number is three times bigger than in 2001 — and includes an incredible 40-times increase in one of the capital’s inner-city boroughs.
The findings, which will fuel suspicions of organised fraud, come a week after an Evening Standard investigation disclosed how easy it is to obtain other people’s ballot papers by cheating.
Half a million Londoners are due to cast a postal vote, according to the survey of the 33 boroughs.
Hackney tops the league table of increases, with the council having issued 37,285 postal votes for its two constituencies — up 4,000 per cent. The borough has seen demand soar as a result of its 2002 council elections being conducted exclusively by postal voting in a government pilot scheme.
Barnet is second highest with 32,501. The average number of postal votes per borough is 16,862.
The figures emerged a week after the Standard revealed how the election is open to vote-rigging. A number of postal ballots for constituencies across London were obtained by a reporter without any apparent checks for fraud.
Last year’s local elections in Birmingham led to the sacking of six Labour councillors for postal fraud. The elections commissioner said the system “would disgrace a banana republic”.
Hackney South and Shoreditch, a safe Labour seat, will have the highest
umber of postal votes in the capital, with 19,456 issued.
Hackney North is second with 17,829. Third is the Lib-Dem marginal seat of Richmond Park.
Elsewhere, 6,600 postal votes have been issued in Bethnal Green and Bow, which is being contested by Oona King and George Galloway. There were about 3,500 postal votes issued in Brent East, where Lib-Dem Sarah
Teather beat Labour in a 2003 by-election. A Hackney council spokeswoman said all postal votes were being hand-delivered by council staff and attention was paid to any instances where large numbers of votes were supplied to a single address, to counter possible fraud.
Across Britain, about six million people have asked for a postal vote following a rule change that removed the need to explain the reason for such a request.
International observers from the Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights have been called in, although they cannot enter polling stations.
The Electoral Commission, a watchdog set up by Parliament, and the Electoral Reform Society have concerns about the lack of safeguards.
They believe people applying to be registered on the electoral roll should supply their signature and date of birth to check against subsequent applications for postal votes.
Alex Folkes, of the Electoral Reform Society, said: “Any time you take ballot papers out of the direct control of the returning officer there is an increased risk of fraud. It could be they get stolen or fall into the wrong hands. It could be that somebody is pressurised into voting a certain way, or it could be there are fictitious electors that never existed in the first place.
“We don’t think postal voting is a bad thing. We just need to put measures in place to ensure fraud doesn’t happen.”
Lord Greaves, a Lib-Dem peer, said: “It is essential the international observers are able to get into the polling stations, the election officials’ offices, the counts and have access to the politicians, to provide a rigorous check on the integrity of the electoral process.”
Many London councils attribute the dramatic increase in postal voting applications to a drive last summer to get people to register to vote in the general election. Insurers for local authorities, which are responsible for running elections fairly, fear they could be landed with huge bills for costs if ballots have to be re-run because of fraud.

Allegations of vote fraud and violence in Tower Hamlets make it even more important to VOTE "NO" on Thursday to an “executive mayor” in Tower Hamlets

When fraud is SEEN to be being preferred to honest campaigning, there is proof that the process is done for! Bring back honest electioneering! Vote “NO” to all types of fraud, deception, impersonation and stooging! Vote ‘NO’ to an elected mayor system in Tower Hamlets. …. Hold the ‘elected’ Council to account. Keep Tower Hamlets borough universally democratic on universally understood universal adult franchise! Vote to make Tower Hamlets Councillors represent the community on the Council and via the Council.

0845 [0840] [0820] Hrs GMT
London
Tuesday
04 May 2010
Editor © Muhammad Haque

These are some of the most important things that need to be said at this moment. Why? Here are some of the most immediate reasons:

This morning’s mainstream [!] UK media is carrying a significant amount of information about Tower Hamlets. In the daily Independent, Tower Hamlets is at once depicted as the scene of probably the most shocking physical act of violence done to a journalist anywhere during this election. The journalist was covering allegations of vote fraud in the borough. HE writes that he was set upon while touring Bethnal Green. The journalist is pictured with the bloody nose he was given by [as he writes] ‘Asian’ ‘Bengali’ youths in Tower Hamlets the borough he ranks as the third most deprived borough in the UK. The questions is: Are the two factors ‘the’ explanation of the alleged fraud and the reported violence? If the answer to this question is yes then what is the answer to the question that then arises: what have those in power done to avoid the reported occurrences and conduct? Have the accepted and legitimate ‘law enforcing’ agencies done their job and has the Retuning Officer [Now ‘Dr’ Kevan Collins, based at the remote location of Mulberry Place, 5 Clove Crescent, London E14 2BG] paid full attention to his duties, especially in light of the persistent allegations that have been made for at least the past five tears about voting fraud in parts of the Tower Hamlets Borough? What real educational programmes have the schools, colleges and other officially and actually running centres and projects about education in Tower Hamlets done to advance legitimacy and honesty in democratic participation in the East End of London borough? [To be continued]

Tower Hamlets borough AGAIN features as a main location in the UK with significant volume of alleged voting fraud activities being reported. Vote ‘NO’

0720 Hrs GMT
London
Tuesday
04 May 2010

Editor © Muhammad Haque

________________________________

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/election/article-1271457/General-Election-2010-Postal-vote-fraud-amid-fears-bogus-voters-swing-election.html

Postal vote fraud: 50 criminal inquiries nationwide amid fears bogus voters could swing election
By SAM GREENHILL and TIM SHIPMAN
Last updated at 7:49 AM on 4th May 2010


Comments (101)


Voter fraud could determine the outcome of the general election as evidence emerges of massive postal vote rigging.
Police have launched 50 criminal inquiries nationwide amid widespread cases of electoral rolls being packed with ‘bogus’ voters.
Officials report a flood of postal vote applications in marginal seats. With the outcome of the closest election in a generation hanging in the balance, a few thousand ‘stolen’ votes there could determine who wins the keys to Downing Street.

'Stolen': There has been a recent flood of postal vote applications in marginal seats, officials say
Anti-sleaze campaigner Martin Bell said: ‘There is actually a possibility that the result of the election could be decided by electoral fraud. That’s pretty grim.
‘We are facing a situation where we can no longer trust the integrity of our electoral system. It was a huge mistake to extend the postal vote. It opened up our system to all kinds of frauds.’
Out of a total estimated electorate of 46million, 7million have registered for postal votes.
The Metropolitan Police are examining 28 claims of major abuses across 12 boroughs - with four separate investigations in Tower Hamlets, East London.
Labour supporters stand accused of packing the electoral roll at the last minute with relatives living overseas or simply inventing phantom voters.
Officials in Tower Hamlets received 5,166 new registrations just before the April 20 deadline, and there has been no time to check them all.
In Bethnal Green, it is feared the electoral register has been deliberately stacked with fictitious names.
Enlarge

Yesterday the Mail visited one four-bedroom flat in the area where 18 men are apparently claiming a vote, all of whom registered within the past month.
The students living there were baffled by many of the names said to be residing with them. Another resident was surprised to learn that eight complete strangers were also registered as living in the small flat she shares with her partner.
Other addresses investigated by the Mail were linked to the Labour Party.
At a property in Rainhill Way, Bethnal Green, where Labour Party council election candidate Khales Uddin Ahmed lives with his family, seven adults have suddenly joined the electoral roll.

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A few streets away, where Labour councillor Shiria Khatun is seeking re-election, her household has been boosted by three new voter registrations at her small flat within the past few weeks.
Her husband angrily slammed the door when questions were asked yesterday.

Campaign stop: Gordon Brown meets four-month-old twins Grace and Sophie Rose Lund-Conlon in Ipswich. Opinion polls indicated Britain remained on course for a parliament with no outright majority
The Mail’s Richard Kay has learned that for the first time ever the Commonwealth is dispatching a group of election monitors – more used to supervising banana republics – to scrutinise the results on Thursday.
Opposition parties fear a concerted effort is being made to swing the election.
Tower Hamlets Conservative councillor Peter Golds said: ‘There is increasing evidence of ongoing electoral corruption. I am concerned that there will be no attempt to investigate this before election day.
‘All the dodgy addresses seem to involve Bangladeshi names, and the police are terrified of investigating that community for fear of being branded racists.

Tight race: David Cameron runs along the seafront in Blackpool yesterday
‘At one of the addresses, a Russian woman answers the door. How many Bangladeshi men live together with a Russian woman?’
Numerous other examples of this corruption are coming to light, including a visitor from Bangladesh who arrives with a tourist visa next week, but whose postal vote has already been sent off.
The problem is not confined to London. In Yorkshire, five police investigations are under way in Bradford and Calderdale, where two arrests have been already been made.
In Derby, police are investigating several claims of electoral fraud, including one case where a female voter was allegedly intimidated by three men who demanded that she fill in and sign postal votes for the Labour Party.
In Surrey, Tory activists have received reports that two members of a rival party pretended to be Conservatives and bullied a man on a ventilator in hospital into signing over his postal vote to them.
Under election law, anyone from Commonwealth countries can vote in the general election if resident in the UK.
But names can be added to the electoral roll – and become eligible for postal votes – without anyone checking their identities or whether they are actually in the country.
In 2005 around 15 per cent of all votes were cast using a postal vote, but the Electoral Commission watchdog believes that figure will rise this time.
In the last month there were 150,000 applications and, in some areas, postal vote registrations have increased by 200 per cent since 2005.
Surveys of the most marginal seats, where the election will be decided, have revealed a surge in postal voting.
In the key marginals Edinburgh South and Barnet, postal votes are up by 60 per cent, while Brighton has seen an increase of 40 per cent in voter registration.

Standing tall: Nick Clegg with his wife Miriam Gonzalez Durantez, right and television presenter Floella Benjamin, left, at the Palace Project community centre in Streatham
In Islington, a vital Labour-Lib Dem marginal, the numbers on the electoral roll have increased by nearly 20,000 to 135,800 in just five years.
The Electoral Commission, which oversees the elections process, warned seven years ago that widespread postal voting is open to fraud.
But rules to ensure that every voter has to provide personal ID before joining the electoral roll will not come into force for three years.
LEO MCKINSTRY: Postal passport to ballot frauds - a farce that shames democracy
The integrity of our voting system used to be taken for granted. Whatever their allegiance, voters could have absolute faith in the outcome of a General Election.
But, like so many other British traditions, the credibility of our democracy has been badly weakened during the last 13 years of Labour rule.
Thanks to the introduction of mass postal voting on demand, the stench of malpractice now hangs over the process, whether it be through serial abuses on the electoral roll or widespread fraud in the casting of postal votes.

The postal voting process is easily open to manipulation
With the result of the General Election so uncertain and the gap between the three main parties so narrow, the potential for corruption is deeply worrying.
This Thursday postal voting will play a far bigger role than in any previous contest, with more than seven million people having registered for a postal ballot.
In the last month alone, there were 150,000 applications and, in some areas, the number of registrations for postal votes has increased by 200 per cent compared with the 2005 election.
Yet, unlike voting at a polling station, the postal process is easily open to manipulation by political parties and criminals because no proper checks are made on the electors’ identities.
The same problem applies to the electoral roll, where names are added or removed without effective investigation, a flaw compounded by the phenomenal demographic upheaval caused by mass immigration.
With an annual inflow running at over 500,000 and emigration by Britons reaching almost 400,000 a year, electoral registers have increasingly turned into little more than works of fiction.
The Government and its agencies have been celebrating the recent surge in registrations and postal vote applications as evidence of a new enthusiasm for politics amongst the electorate, due partly to the TV debates.
The reality is that it has undermined the whole democratic process.
A study by the Council of Europe in 2008 stated that ‘the voting system in Great Britain is open to electoral fraud’, since it was ‘childishly simple’ to register bogus voters, while ‘postal voting provides the anonymity to carry out fraud without detection’.
Particularly disturbing is the position in the crucial marginal seats that will decide the outcome of election.
Here, in a desperate drive to boost support, all the major parties have been making intensive efforts to increase registration and postal voting.
In Edinburgh South, a vital three-way marginal, postal votes are up by 60 per cent, while in the London borough of Islington, scene of a bitter fight between Labour and the Liberal Democrats, the numbers on the electoral roll have increased by nearly 20,000 to 135,800 since 2005.

Kerry McCarthy was reported to police after she put postal vote results on her Twitter page
Five police investigations are under way in the Yorkshire conurbations of Bradford and Calderdale, where two arrests have been made.
In London, police are examining 28 allegations of major abuses across 12 boroughs. In one typical case, a resident of Bethnal Green was surprised to learn that eight complete strangers were also registered at the small flat she shares with her partner.
Responding to mounting concern about corruption, John Turner, chief executive of the Association of Electoral Administrators, admitted ‘fraudulent activity’ was easy to perpetrate.
‘It’s not a properly verified system and it should be.’
This growing threat to democracy has happened entirely because of decisions taken by Labour.
Despite strong opposition, it pressed ahead in 2004 with the introduction of postal voting on demand without any safeguards or tightening of the register.
Before then, voters had to provide a valid reason why they needed to vote by post, such as work commitments, disability or holiday.
The theoretical justification was to boost turnout at a time of growing public apathy. But in reality, Labour saw that an insecure-system could work to the party’s advantage in urban areas where the population is more fluid.
This is particularly true among inner-city wards dominated by Asian clan leaders who effectively control the local franchise and even set up ‘voting factories’ to process ballot papers.
Almost all the worst instances of fraud since 2000 have arisen in places with large concentrations of Asian voters, such as Blackburn, Oldham and Tower Hamlets.
In the Birmingham local elections of 2004, six Muslim men stole thousands of ballot papers and marked them for Labour candidates. The Election Commissioner, Richard Mawrey QC, said at their trial that the contest ‘would have disgraced a banana republic’.
Yet the problem remains as bad as ever. A BBC report last week found that Asian activists are targeting British Pakistanis who have relocated in their thousands to the Pakistan district of Maipur.
The activists are going door to door asking any who are still eligible for a British vote to sign over their entitlement to a proxy or postal vote.
As a result, it is claimed that many have signed forms for this week’s elections, without knowing who they are voting for.
This is a farce that shames democracy. But Labour, desperate to cling on to power, does not care about rebuilding trust. Partisan gain is all that matters.
Labour’s willingness to exploit a dodgy system was graphically illustrated in its two unexpected recent by-election triumphs in Scotland.
At Glenrothes in 2008, the neighbouring seat to Gordon Brown’s at Kirkcaldy, there was a fourfold increase in postal ballots and Labour’s opponents demanded to see the marked official register which showed whether individuals had voted or not.
Unbelievably, the Sheriff ’s Clerk’s Office in Kirkcaldy had to explain, after five months, that the register had ‘gone missing’.
And Labour’s win in Glasgow North East last November followed a dramatic increase in postal votes, with almost 2,000 applications submitted less than three days before the registration deadline.
The Electoral Commission complained that Labour ‘did not comply’ with the code of conduct on the submission of postal-vote applications.
Labour would no doubt just dismiss this as scaremongering. But the truth is that the Government’s own cynicism towards the voting process could make this the most tainted, distorted result in General Election history.
One disquieting straw in the wind could be seen last Friday, when Kerry McCarthy, Labour candidate for Bristol East, revealed on her Twitter page that an early sample of postal votes showed she had received almost ten times the number of her nearest rival. ‘Game on!’, she trumpeted.
She has been accused of breaching electoral law, since candidates are not meant to release such information.
But even more alarming is the apparent extent of her lead, despite Labour’s fall to third place in most opinion polls. If Labour is still in power on Friday, the entire voting system will be in the dock.

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UK election: Prospects of aspiring Muslim MPs

Elham Asaad Buaras



The prospects of having more Muslim candidates elected at the General Election are much brighter than in 2005. Although there are around the same number standing (80 compared to 79 in 2005), more will be elected than in 2005, including several women, from various parties. As has become customary, The Muslim News presents the most comprehensive analysis of the various chances and challenges faced by the aspiring MPs.

The capital is divided into 73 seats, making it a major factor on the make-up of the next Government. Nineteen (4 Labour, 1 Tory, 6 Lib Dems and 8 others) Muslim Prospective Parliamentary Candidates (PPCs) are contesting 16 seats, the highest number of all the regions.

In 1997 rows of formerly safe London Tory seats fell in Labour's landslide victory. In 2005 the Tories recovered in the suburbs, while the Labour vote fell in some of the more liberal inner city areas, making a number of seats highly marginal. In 2008 Labour suffered a further blow when Boris Johnson was elected Mayor. Despite this, many polls have London as one of the lower-swing regions in the election.

Key Tory contests are in outer London seats that went Labour in 1997 - Brentford & Isleworth, Eltham, Enfield North, Finchley & Golders Green, Harrow East and Hendon. Others tenuously marginal seats include Battersea and Westminster North. The Lib Dems will try to hold off the Tories in 5 southern seats, and will target several Labour ones in the inner city such as Islington South & Finsbury and Holborn & St Pancras. Boundary changes create a new Brent Central seat forcing Labour's Dawn Butler MP and Lib Dems Sarah Teather MP to fight it out. In Barking & Dagenham, the far-right British National Party (BNP) will be mounting their most serious assault, a seat where their first councillor was elected in 2006. A London-wide YouGov poll put the BNP on 3%, its highest figure.

In the East End the battle to secure the coveted Muslim vote in the Respect held Bethnal Green & Bow is expected to be hard fought, but Labour's Bangladeshi-born Rushanara Ali is well placed to become one of several female Muslim MPs, a first in the UK. For the first time in its history, the seat with a 39% Muslim population is guaranteed a Muslim MP as all the front runners are Muslims. Ali's chances of regaining the Labour safe seat lost by Oona King to George Galloway in 2005 are boosted by the fact that only 823 votes separate the parties and that Labour have listed it as number 18 target seat.

Oxford University Graduate, Ali, who has worked with a local social innovation think tank focused, promptly publicised her anti-war view, an issue that cost King her seat: "I was opposed to the war in Iraq. I understand the sentiments that many people felt around that, but we need to focus around the local issues that many people are very worried about, like health, jobs and life chances. Labour can deliver and care about this community. I'm running for one reason alone and that is to unite the East End. We need to move past the divisions in the community to tackle the issues that matter to local people, like community safety, jobs and housing."

Ali is be up against leader of Respect group on Tower Hamlets Council, Abjol Miah, and not Galloway who has departed to the newly created Poplar & Limehouse, where he is be up against Jim Fitzpatrick, MP. Miah praised Respect's achievements, which include "stop[ing] eleven stock transfers (selling off estates to private landlords); with others won a referendum on the right of people to choose if they want a local directly elected Mayor; made social housing and parking rip offs a political issue for the Council; championed fairer taxes and at every turn fought racism and promoted good community relations. We have stood in solidarity with those facing job cuts, university closures and Trust schools." He insisted that Labour's infighting will jeopardize their chances. "New Labour in the area is in total disarray: for years faction fights have paralysed them and betrayed the interests of local people."

The Tory's sole Muslim PPC in the capital, Zahir Khan, denied Bethnal Green & Bow is a two horse race between Respect and Labour PPCs. "There isn't an incumbent MP defending a seat so the slate is clean. I think it's an open field and no one is guaranteed." Khan said he is confident the Tories will come to power and that the Muslim community should engage with parties other than Labour. "It's important that the Muslim and Asian communities engage with the party in power, we've historically voted for the opposition." He also urged for voters "to vote wisely. In the last election we voted for Galloway out of anger, and he could not deliver anything because he is one person fighting against the system."

Broadcast journalist Ajmal Masroor, 39, insisted the Lib Dems will play a vital role in the elections. "If there's a hung Parliament the balance of power would be decided by the Lib Dems." Masroor, a community development and youth worker, will hope to raise the Lib Dems poor showing Bethnal Green & Bow when the party came fourth with only 4,928 of the vote. "Lib Dems have the best programme for tackling the tirade of Islamophobic and draconian and anti-human liberty legislation that the Government has pursued and the Conservatives have supported, and finally bread-and-butter issues such as cutting income tax to £10,000 as well as looking to abolish Council Tax and taking people out of misery and debt by cutting tuition fees, these are ground breaking policies." He also praised his party's international policies: "Lib Dems has been consistently against the Iraq war, injustices that have been perpetrated against the Palestinians. In fact Nick Clegg has asked for a trade embargo against Israel and an end to a privileged trade relation that it has with the EU."

Green PPC and anti-war campaigner, Farid Bakht, is also contesting Bethnal Green & Bow. Bakht, who is the International Coordinator on the party's National Executive Committee, wants to bring "polarisation" and unity to the borough. Hackney-born Bakht, says he wants to protect young people against any cuts to education, abolish student tuition fees and help train them.

The other Muslim PPCs standing in Bethnal Green & Bow include; Haji Mahmood Choudhury (Independent), Ahmed Malik (Independent), Hasib Hikmat (United Voice)

The Green Party has also fielded a total of 72 PPCs in the capital among them Melan Zahra Fardouee (Kensington & Chelsea) and former academic researcher Anne Gray, 65, (Tottenham). Gray supports the local campaigns to save the Whittington Hospital A&E and challenge health service privatisation. She also campaigns on civil liberties and solidarity with Palestine.

Newly created Poplar & Limehouse is one of only two seats where two incumbents fight it out. Environment Minister and Poplar & Canning Town MP, Jim Fitzpatrick will duel against Bethnal Green & Bow MP George Galloway. The rise of Respect and the resulting splitting of the Labour vote combined with gentrification in areas around Canary Wharf have meant that the nationally safe Labour seat of Poplar & Limehouse is now a Tory target seat requiring a swing of fewer than 6%. Fitzpatrick said a vote for Galloway would benefit the Tories adding, "Respect can influence none of that because they are a minor protest group, which does not perform well in the council, which does not have credible [international development] policies, which will not be in power."

He suggested that Galloway's record as MP for Bethnal Green & Bow will repel some voters. "People voted for George Galloway because they didn't know him as well as they do now. The problem that he has had having to pay back money to the House of Commons, having to compensate a member of staff who he sacked by email, having a poor parliamentary record in terms of speaking and voting, spending as much of his time outside parliament… demonstrates that George Galloway's record is one that people really need to look very closely at before they decide to vote for him again."

Galloway staunchly defended his parliamentary record. "My expenses as MP for Bethnal Green & Bow are zero, I'm the only London MP whose expenses were zero, and the money paid back was for a telephone bill from 6 years ago that was wrongly applied to a budget by the finance office staff," he said.

He highlighted Fitzpatrick's own voting record: "Most votes are either for the Prime Minister's motion or for the leader of the opposition amendment…and I seldom vote for either. However, I did vote against the war and he voted for it, I did vote against identity cards and he voted for them, I did vote against tuition fees for students and he voted for them, I did vote against the so-called anti-terror legislation and he voted for it. I did vote to demand a ceasefire in Lebanon and he voted against it, I could go on."

Occupational therapist, Mohammed Hoque and Kabir Mahmud will both stand as Independent PPC's in Polar & Limehouse.

Respect PPC Samad Billo and the Lib Dem's Johar Khan are both vying for Enfield Southgate. But the contest is expected to be between Labour PPC Bambos Charalambous and incumbent Tory MP David Burrowes who in 2005 ousted Labour's Stephen Twigg, by 8.7% swing.

In Croydon North, Respect PPC Mohammed Shaikh is to take his anti-war and anti- public sector cuts message to the Labour stronghold (31.7%) seat.

The Labour selection for the east London seat of Walthamstow has attracted some controversy from Labour activists. Neil Gerrard, MP, is standing down and his replacement Stella Creasy was selected through an all women shortlist, which some have criticised as missing an opportunity to select a male Black or Asian PPC for a seat that has both Afro-Caribbean communities (17%) and Asian (17.8%) populations. Lib Dems PPC Farid Ahmed is trying to narrow the Labour majority of 7,993 in 2005 he came second with 9,330 of the votes an impressive 12.5% increase from the 2001 election.

Labour MP, Sadiq Khan, won the Tooting seat with 43.1% of the vote in the last General Election. The Transport Minister has become the first Muslim to sit in on cabinet meetings. He is expected to successfully defend his 5,381 majority but faces possible consequence of a backlash against the Government.

Khan won the seat in 2005, but with a greatly reduced majority. Labour's share of the vote fell by 11% to 43% turning this into a three-way contest with the Tory on 30% and the Lib Dems, whose vote share rose by more than any other party, on nearly 20%. Lib Dems have selected Nasser Butt as their PPC for Tooting. Butt is one of the party's senior human rights activists, a long time campaigner for the party. Tory PPC Mark Clarke said the "popularity" of the Tory council would be an advantage in fighting for the 6.1% swing needed if Tooting is to go Tory.

Labour is trying to regain their Wimbledon seat from the Tories; the Greater London seat has exchanged hands from the Tories and Labour since the 1992 elections. Lib Dems PPC Shas Sheehan will want to break that trend. Although the Lib Dems came in at third with 18.1% of the vote in 2005, they did however increase their vote by 5.1 % for the first time.

Greenwich & Woolwich is currently held by Labour's Nick Raynsford. The Lib Dems who came in at second with 20.7% of the vote have selected 26 year old estate agent, Joseph Lee, as their PPC. Leader of the Tory group on Greenwich Council, Councillor Spencer Drury, is standing on behalf of the Tories.

Sonia Klein, 41, is standing for Ilford North, Labour target number 28, a seat lost by Labour MP Linda Perham to the Tories in 2005. The Senior Consultant at PricewaterhouseCoopers will hope to overturn the notional majority of 4%. Klein's manifesto centres on economic development and social Justice.

She said, "We need inward investment to create new jobs. We have a lot of assets in Ilford which we're not making the most of. We have great creativity and talent which we can combine together to put Ilford on the map."

The north-west London seat of Harrow East with many Asian voters includes Kenton, Wealdstone and Stanmore. Its border has been redrawn somewhat in the 2010 boundary review. The seat is considered a Tory target (56) and their PPC Bob Blackman is best placed to benefit from any backlash over the expenses claims of Labour Minister Tony McNulty, MP. According to one poll McNulty's 2005 majority has been reduced from 4,730 (9.3%) to a notional majority of 2,647 (6.2%). Lib Dems Iran born PPC Nahid Boethe is attempting to build on the party's slender success (2.7% vote increase) but the party is expected to remain in third place.

(Source: Muslim News, UK)