Articles with the Tag elections

First Muslim women elected to British parliament

Anti-war, Bloody Lawyers, Feminism, Socialism, UK elections, UK politics, Women
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Via TwoCircles.net:

London : Shabana Mahmood and Yasmin Qureshi have become the first Muslim women to be elected to the British parliament after successfully defending Labour seats.

Mahmood successfully increased the majority of former International Development Secretary Clare Short, who has retired from parliament, from under 7,000 votes to more than 10,000 in Birmingham Ladywood in central England.

The Oxford University-educated barrister saw off challenges from two other Muslim candidate, Ayoub Khan representing the Liberal Democrats and Nusrat Ghani, who was standing for the Tories.

I see some things never change.

The announcement of her success came as Qureshi, who is also a lawyer, won by a reduced majority of more than 8,600 in the Bolton South East constituency in north-west England.

Not another bloody lawyer – like they didn’t cause enough damage already.

Respect Party leader Salma Yaqoob is seen as having an outside chance of capturing Birmingham Hall Green, which has boundary changes with the adjacent Sparkbrook and Small Heath, where she came second at the last elections with 27.5% of the vote.

Salma Yaqoob didn’t win but came second:

Despite being written off by the media I came second, polling over 12,000 votes. It is a fantastic achievement and testimony to a desire for a political alternative to the parties of bombing and big business. It is clear that many people’s fear of a Tory government boosted the Labour vote, puncturing the Lib Dem bubble but also squeezing my vote as well.

Not a win, but a good result nonetheless. And if any proposed LibDem/A.N.Other coalition falls apart, she can stand again.

If At First You Don’t Succeed, Freep Like F*ckery

Election Skullduggery, Gordon Brown, Manufacturing consent, UK elections, UK politics
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Has a desperate Gordon Brown activated his last-chance strategy of freeping the election?

votessack.jpg

I hate to say I told you so (not that it ever stopped me) but… from this evenings Guardian front page:

The result of the general election may not be confirmed until late on Friday because the electoral system is struggling to process verification checks on a record number of postal votes, officers have warned.

Councils have reported applications for postal votes up by 60% in some areas, and with a new system of checking signatures and dates of birth against applications – and only 11 days between the deadline for applications and polling day – administrators say there could be delays.

[…]

The surge in postal votes has also raised concerns about electoral fraud, although the 50 allegations currently being investigated are mainly confined to the local elections are also being held in some areas tomorrow.

John Turner, the chief executive of the Association of Electoral Administrators, said: “If returning officers receive sackfuls of postal votes tomorrow, it’s going to put serious delays in the system because they will have to focus on verification before they start counting votes.

Me last week:

Poll Fraud 2010 – Let The Vote Rigging Begin!

Never mind, Gordon, even when the election looks well and truly lost, there’s always voting fraud…

[…]

The 2005 election, and specifically Birmingham 2005, was described by election observers as the dirtiest UK election ever, and that was down to Labour:

Vote-riggers exploited weaknesses in the postal voting system to steal thousands of ballot papers and mark them for Labour, helping the party to take first place in elections to Birmingham City Council.

They believed that their cheating would be hidden for ever in the secrecy of the strong boxes where counted votes are stored, never suspecting that a judge would take the rare step of smashing the seals and tracing the ballots back to the voters.

[…]

They coldly exploited communities where many cannot speak English or write their names. They forced what the judge called “dishonest or frightened” postmen into handing over sacks of postal ballots. They seem to have infiltrated the mail service: several voters gave evidence that their ballot papers were altered to support Labour after they put them in the post.

That’s not to say the Tories haven’t also been up to electoral shenanigans:

5 June 2006 The Times reported that the police in Coventry were investigating allegations that there had been personation offences in the ward of Foleshill at the local elections in May 2006 and that there had also been postal voting fraud. An election petition was lodged at the High Court by the defeated Labour councillor in the ward giving the names and addresses of ten voters whose identities were apparently stolen:

The Times has seen passports of three voters, a veteran Labour Party member and a young couple, which indicate that they were out of the country on election day, May 4. Documents also seen by the newspaper show that staff in polling stations in Coventry that day clearly marked the three down as having turned up and voted. The Conservatives won the ward, Foleshill, by six votes after a recount, one of two gainsthat turned a deadlocked council into one with a slender Tory lead.

Labour has conveniently left most of the loopholes that have allowed it to manipulate the vote firmly in place, despite numerous reports from such august bodies as the Joseph Rowntree Trust, fromACPO & the Electoral Commission, and most recently from Parliament itself, all pointing out the ease and prevalence of vote rigging. From the parliamentry report:

• Experienced election observers have raised serious concerns about how well UK election procedures measure up to international standards.

• There have been at least 42 convictions for electoral fraud in the UK in the period 2000–2007.

• Greater use of postal voting has made UK elections far more vulnerable to fraud and resulted in several instances of large-scale fraud.

• There is widespread, and justifiable, concern about both the comprehensiveness and the accuracy of the UK’s electoral registers – the poor state of the registers potentially compromises the integrity of the ballot.

• There is a genuine risk of electoral integrity being threatened by previously robust systems of electoral administration having reached ‘breaking point’ as a result of pressures imposed in recent years.

• Public confidence in the electoral process in the UK was the lowest in Western Europe in 1997, and has almost certainly declined further as a result of the extension of postal voting.

• The benefits of postal and electronic voting have been exaggerated, particularly in relation to claims about increased turnout and social inclusion.

• There is substantial evidence to suggest that money can have a powerful impact on the outcome of general elections, particularly where targeted at marginal constituencies over sustained periods of time.

• Outside of ministerial circles, there is a widespread view that a fundamental overhaul of UK electoral law, administration and policy is urgently required.

The Labour government may have made a show of reform with these postal vote verification procedures, but that’s all it is, a show, a bit of window dressing. Why change a voting system whose lack of integrity they’re exploiting to the full? And do we really think they’re not exploiting that lack of integrity today in 2010? A reported 60% surge in postal votes says to me they are.

Everybody needs a bosom for a pillow

New Labour, UK elections
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Openess, New Labour style: a Times reporter “stalks” Gloria de Piero not to talk about her massive norks, but what she could actually do for her chosen constituency, but isn’t recieve gratefully:

“What on earth are you doing here?” she asks. I tell her I thought I’d come and see how things were going. “But I don’t understand why you’re here,” she says again. “We’re only doing regional press. We can’t do an interview. We’ve been through this.”

I know. I don’t want an interview. I just want to see how the campaign is going.

[…]

When I say that not only is it actually happening, but also that it is actually happening to candidates all across the country and that she should probably be able to handle this, not only as a potential MP but also as a former political journalist, she rounds on me and says: “I’ve had requests from every national newspaper. Observer, Guardian, Mail. No, no, no. You’ve all submitted your requests and we’ve been through the process and we’re not doing anything . . .”

The obsession of the British media with del Piero’s breats is obnoxious enough, but what’s worse is to realise that this sort of misguided attention is exactly what politicians want. Far better to fight a battle on the question of whether or not having done allegedly softcore naughty pictures at age fifteen makes you an unsuitable candidate than whether or not your politics are any good…

A Very Lucrative Victory

fascists, New Labour, UK elections
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bnpfail

[Pic from Adventures In Historical Materialism]

If it wasn’t grim enough up North before it certainly will be once that odious prick Nick Griffin and his sidekick, former politics lecturer and National Front leader Andrew Bron take office in Brussels – but not for them. No credit crunch for Griffin and Bron. They’ll be doing quite nicely thank you.

No wonder candidates are desperate to get elected:

In the last five-year term of the parliament, it is estimated British MEPs have been able to claim more than £1.8m in expenses and allowances.

They have been receiving more than £363,000 a year in expenses without receipts including £259 a day for “subsistence allowance”, the infamous “sign in and sod-off” payment.

Travel expenses of £87,407 a year are permissible and there is £3756 available as an additional annual travel allowance.

Read More

Don’t You Know There’s An Election On?

Sleaze, UK elections, UK politics
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The story above is now a thing of the past, says Gordon Brown, who’s been touting his newly rediscovered (for the 5th, or was it 6th? time) Presbyterian conscience all over the media, all the while grinning as rigidly as only someone who just had his medication can.

But crowded out by the blanket coverage of MPs’ licensed larceny and untroubled by very much scrutiny at all Labour’s petty election tricks roll on as usual:

A couple identified as “Gillian and Barry from Port Seton” were quoted in leaflets used in the Lothians as saying: “It’s Gordon Brown’s leadership that will get us through these tough times. Labour is the only party on the side of hard-working families, standing up for Scottish people nationally and in Europe.”

The couple and their young daughter Hanna also appear on the front of Scottish Labour’s manifesto for Thursday’s poll.However, leaflets distributed in the Highlands and Islands attribute precisely the same quote to “The Conniff Family, from Wester Ross”.

The quote also appears next to a family on Labour leaflets in Greater Manchester, with the phrase “British people” substituted for “Scottish people”.

Another variation turns up in Central Scotland, where “the McDonald family from Sauchie” feel they can “rely on Gordon Brown’s leadership to see the country through these tough times”.

One of the Conniff family, Christine, was a Labour party list candidate in the Highlands and Islands at the 2007 elections.

Dundee West MSP Joe Fitzpatrick, the SNP’s European election campaign coordinator, said Labour had been caught red-handed.

They do seem to making a habit of that.

Lest the voters should temporarily forget such blatant dishonesty and actually make a decision on the issues, Labour’s spin merchants have drafted ‘personal’ apologies for Labour’s MPs, MEPs and local councillors to send to voters ahead of this Thursday’s Euro and local council elections :

The letter for Labour’s local councillors

Dear [Insert Name]

I know how angry people are with Westminster politicians. I suspect you are as fed up I am, as day after day more stories come out showing greed and in some cases, serious wrongdoing. I would like to echo Gordon Brown’s words – that I am sorry that the political system and some MPs have let you down.

I’m sure Insert Name will find that very reassuring and resolve to vote Labour right away, or they would if they could find its name on the ballot paper.

But Insert Name may be a Wirral voter, where the spirit of Damien McBride is alive and kicking. Local Labour activists are accused of using BNP tactics against a defecting councillor:

WIRRAL’S Labour group last night refused to comment on an email calling for help to hand out leaflets in the ward of a defector from their party – despite one of their own volunteers comparing it to “a BNP mailing”.

The email, leaked to the Daily Post, contains a furious rant against former Labour councillor Denis Knowles who two weeks ago quit the party and crossed the council chamber to the Tories.

The leaflet also featured a mock-up picture of Cllr Knowles with two faces – one saying he is a Labour supporter and the other saying he is Conservative.

[…]

… the email calling for party members to deliver the leaflet was criticised by one of its recipients. The email describes local Conservatives Ian Lewis, Leah Fraser and Chris Blakeley, along with Tory leader Jeff Green as “very scary people” and highlights their names with skull and crossbones motif. It is signed “ANON” and underneath says: “Leader’s Office, Wirral Council” and gives local Labour HQ contact details…. It is understood that the email was not intended to go outside the Labour group.

They really don’t have much luck with those internal emails, do they.

Now I don’t want to be accused of being partisan, so will I’ll also point out that Labour aren’t the only party resorting to negative spin and dirty tricks. The Lib Dems in Cornwall are also accused:

THE LIBERAL DEMOCRATS have been forced to make a formal apology after using a highly offensive obscene term to describe an opposition councillor in a campaigning leaflet.

Mebyon Kernow councillor Stuart Cullimore said he was “absolutely appalled” at being the subject of foul-mouthed abuse in an official Lib-Dem leaflet ahead of Thursday’s county council and Euro elections.

The leaflet, calling Coun Cullimore a “greasy-haired t***”, was distributed to houses in the Camborne South division on behalf of Lib-Dem Cornwall Council candidate Anna Pascoe, who said “foul play” is suspected.

It’s my considered opinion that judged entirely by his photo and the fact he’s a candidate for the formerly Vlaams Blok-sympathising, Cornish separatist party Mebyon Kernow, that the candidate is indeed a greasy haired twat. Anyone can have an opinion, but it’s hardly the thing to put in an election leaflet.

With only 3 days to go till the election there may well be many more dirty tricks happening nationwide, but if there are, they’re not being reported very well. Not enough space o the front or inside pages and for that we can again blame dishonest MPs.