From the Hickey column in today’s Daily Express:
Just days after the death aged 82 of the nation’s oldest serving MP, Labour’s Piara Khabra, his party is under fire after it emerged that staff were canvassing for votes for a by-election in his constituency even before he had passed away … prior to his death, residents in his Ealing Southall constituency were, Hickey learns, controversially receiving telephone calls from Labour employees about their future voting intentions. “Locals have complained that they were canvassed over the phone by Labour staff only the week before Piara’s passing away,” Hickey is told. “It seems inappropriate and disrespectful to say the least.”
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11 Comments
Did they know he was dying? Were the calls specifcally for his sucessor election or doing generalised intention calling and they got caught out by the sad event?
Sorry but this may be an unwarranted criticism.
Yes they new he was dying hence the calls!
Seems a fair enough strategy to me.
It’s not unknown for activity to be stepped up in areas where a by-election is imminent!
Sorry, but the LibDems do this all the time!
Jesus someone is desperate. What a non-story. Totally realistic for Labour (or any party) to do such a thing, the guy was dying.
I’ve seen Labour calls for the other parties to “respect” the convention on not campaigning until after the funeral – obviously they aren’t.
Labour once called a by-election (Ipswich?) before the funeral
yes of course it seems to be in poor taste but thats politics. surely it makes more sense to leave it to the people of Ealing to decide. After the result on by-election day is declared we will know what thay think about it. Sounds simple to me.
Still, its in rather bad taste and I’m sure this should work more against Labour in the by-election rather than giving them a head start (I’m going to go up and help, anyone else?)
I wonder if the Hickey stories come from websites, such as this, where the story started – and now these websites use the story as proof? Makes you think.
It’s usually Labour or the Tories who like to complain about campaigning (usually without much basis other than annouance that people are challenging in seat that are their’s by right) yet when they get caught out they don’t like it.