First there were three and then there were five and now there are seven contenders to be Labour's candidate for the East London borough's first executive mayoral contest to be held in October. That's been the position since last Friday evening following a further legal challenge that resulted in the former council leader Councillor Lutfur Rahman being allowed to take part despite having been rejected by the two different shortlisting panels that picked the three and the five.
The same challenge led to Councillor Sirajul Islam being included too. He was one of the three, but not one of the five. The other runners in this expanding field are health service manager Rosna Mortuza (who was one of the five but not one of the three), another former leader the academic Michael Keith (ditto), the borough's present leader Councillor Helal Abbas (ditto again), Councillor Shiria Khatun, who was one of the three and one of the five, and yet another former council leader John Biggs (ditto) who now represents the borough on the London Assembly.
I'm sure you've found that all perfectly clear. It is less clear who will win. When there were three, Biggs was considered the hot favourite. When there were five, Biggs was still reckoned to be favourite but likely to face a significant challenge from Abbas. Now there are seven Biggs could still be the front runner, but the picture looks more complex.
The selection will be made by the roughly 1,200 local party members. Some say that Rahman can count on at least 250 votes, including many from relatives, and might even benefit from being seen as the victim of media and Labour Party attacks. Others claim that talk of such a vast Rahman vote bank is an exaggeration.
I spoke to a majority of the candidates yesterday and asked each of them if any "stop Lutfur" movement was underway, involving deals whereby candidates thought to have only outside chances would withdraw in deference to another of the favourites and throw their support behind that person in return for future preferment - raw politics, in other words.
One said such overtures were indeed being made in an effort to help the prospects of Abbas, but that Rahman too was putting out feelers. Another view was that the scope for such arrangements was limited by the vivid matrix of deep personal hatreds at play among some of the more experienced players. All insisted they themselves were eschewing backstairs brokerage and simply focusing on maximising their own support. I blushed in the presence of such purity.
The selection will be made on 4 September, with the winner almost certain to take the larger prize in October, given Labour's dominance in the borough. That selection date has itself been moved on what at one stage seemed to be a daily basis. It worries one contender who said that as it falls on a Saturday when Muslim households may be busy preparing for Eid, some party members in them might not get round to casting their votes. But at least it leaves a full month for the lucky seven to campaign, with those who'd secured pledges when there were three and five eager to limit any erosion resulting from the widened choice range (and in Councillor Islam's case, perhaps, to get them back again).
Shiria Khatun was happy to go on the record in saying that those who have been on the shortlist ever since those distant days when there were just three names on it - that's hers and Biggs's - do have a slight advantage as a result, one she compares to being at the front of the queue outside a shop on the first day of a sale. She provided another nice analogy too. "It's all been a bit like a Carry On film," she sighed. "But there's nothing I can do except follow the example of Sid James and just carry on anyway."
's comment