East Ham Euro Canvass

Yesterday evening I helped out with some door knocking in East Ham. We had the support of some of our London Labour Euro-candidates and staff. I saw Claude and Anne.

It was another overwhelmingly positive canvass for Labour which does make me suspicious of national polls. I also had a number of very constructive conversations with residents who on the whole seemed really pleased that we were personally canvassing them and asking for their votes. I only had only one voter who said he was definitely not voting for Labour because of the expenses Parliamentary issue and even he said he would vote for us in the Council and General election next year. He just wanted to punish all the Political Parties by withdrawing his vote. Which I hope he will change his mind about.

There was a nasty motor bike accident outside our meeting point and the Police closed off the main road as a potential crime scene so it took us a while to get out of the area.

Picture is of my ace canvass team that evening which comprised of mo!, Cllr Ayub Korom Ali, Councillor Ayesha Chowdhury and Giampi Alhadeff who is the General Secretary of the European Parliamentary Labour Party.

The race is on for Bethnal Green & Bow

Sorry folks, I got it wrong last night over the current position regarding candidates. Rupa and Shiria are through. There are only 2 vacancies left in the short list between 7 male candidates. I’ve cut and pasted this info from Ayub's site

Nominations have now finished. Two candidates have secured 51% of the nomination votes. This means they automatically go on the short list. The candidates are: Lutfur Rahman and Rushanara Ali. Well done.

This leaves the following candidates with nominations from whom the rest of the shortlist will be drawn from. They are:Rupa Huq, Shiria Khatun, Ayub Korom Ali, Helal Abbas, John Biggs, David Edgar, Abdul Asad, Moti Uzzaman and Shirajul Islam.

The two females i.e. Rupa and Shiria will automatically be placed on the short list because of the 50% rule. Congratulations.

This means the remaining two candidates will be chosen from the following:Ayub Korom Ali, Helal Abbas, John Biggs, David Edgar, Abdul Asad, Moti Uzzaman and Shirajul Islam.

So two of us out of the above seven will be selected at a shortlist committee of Bethnal Green & Bow General Committee on April 14. I am really looking forward to this.

Then the six short listed candidates will face a husting on April 26 with polling day count on April 28.

So Ayub will be up against some pretty serious opposition for one of the two short listed vacancies. There will be a short presentation and Q&A. Ayub gave a blinding interview at UNISON Parliamentary panel and the London region selection process. I am sure he will come through on the 14 April. I think that he is the candidate to unite all communities behind Labour at the next general election.

Bow Boys

Ayub has already posted this picture of Candidates outside last night’s selection meeting. However, “extracting the michael” slightly. It reminds me somewhat of the famous Peter Sellers “lift gag”. Right to left John Biggs (London Assembly member GMB), Cllr Ayub Korom Ali (UNISON nominee), Cllr Alex Heslop (UNISON), Mohamed Munaf Zina Zeena, David Edgar (T&G), a local member whose name I did not catch (who said that he had been visited at his home by 31 candidates so far!) and Dr. Hasanat M. Husain MBE.

Dan McCurry and Abdus Shukur were the only other candidates that I remember seeing. There are, I think, 3 more selection meetings. Bow West meets 7pm tonight at St Paul’s, Stephens Road, E3.