Voters in Kenton ward in Brent go to the polls tomorrow in a by-election. In May last year, the Conservatives took all three seats with Labour being some 14% behind them.
The Times (£) reports that Labour have been forced to withdraw a leaflet which claimed that the Conservative candidate wasn’t even voting Tory any more. The leaflet contained an image of a feedback form to a Labour leaflet from someone with the same name as the Tory candidate who said they had voted Tory in 2010 and wouldn’t be doing so this time because he didn’t like the Tory policy on immigration.
The original leaflet, which Mr Maurice claimed was sent out at the same time as postal votes, said:
“Even the Conservative candidate for the Kenton by-election has said he will not be voting Conservative.”
The Tory candidate deployed a handwriting expert to prove that the form had not been written by him and has threatened to sue the Labour party. He also alerted the police and his team warned that a close loss in Thursday’s council by-election could lead to a re-election.
In a statement, the Labour candidate Vincent Lo said he was “deeply sorry to Mr Maurice for any harm he has suffered as a result of our mistake”.
You have to wonder what on earth Labour were thinking. A spokesperson for their campaign said:
“We have apologised for inaccurately attributing a quote to Michael Maurice.
“We believed the information we were given was credible, but now accept Michael Maurice’s statement that he did not make the statement in question.”
The Liberal Democrat candidate in tomorrow’s by-election is Robert Wharton.
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8 Comments
I’m waiting for the long over due: ‘Candidate apologises for being a Tory’ story.
Nick never apologised for that!
David-1 4th Mar ’15 – 1:34pm
No but you do have to wonder why he believes so strongly that soft, socially liberal, Tories might join or vote for the Liberal Democrats. No, surely not?
Yet another LDV anti Labour article and hardly ‘National News’…..More threads than a Persian carpet on Labour’s tuition fee proposal….
Yet, strangely, Cameron’s refusal to participate in public debate receives ??????? attention/criticism
HSBC scandal,l affecting mainly Tory donors, I must have missed that…
No wonder ‘left leaning’ LibDems must be wondering why we bother…
expats 5th Mar ’15 – 9:09am
Yes I agree. There is a not-so-secret Agenda of ‘bash the Labour Party’ at all costs and heap scorn on Miliband, the SNP, The Greens and anyone who is not signed up to what one of our MPs describes as “staying the course” which of course means Prime Minister Cameron for another five years.
It is tiresome and it speaks volumes of the bankruptcy of ideas of those MPs who have lead the party by the nose into a cul de sac of right-wing irrelevance.
Good luck to Robert Wharton today, I hope Brent Liberal Democrats have been able to distance themselves from the toxic national image.
Just for a bit of balance, here is a story of a General Election which this week resulted in a coalition between a Liberal Democrat Party and a Social Democrat Party —
http://news.err.ee/v/politics/2694d206-eef3-40e1-a52e-62a8c2b0b7bf
Who would have thought that such things were possible ?
The Estonian Reform Party might be a but to the right for my taste but they seem to have come to a perfectly reasonable agreement with the Social Democrats.
Perhaps those Liberal Democrats in the UK who like coalitions should consider following their example?
JohnTilley 5th Mar ’15 – 10:16am …
John, .I’m not an expert on processes in the Riigikogu building…However, I note, that a thread on Cameron’s refusal to debate has just been started….
Sadly, the title, “Clegg: I’ll take Cameron’s place and defend government’s record….” rather says it all. Our problem has been our leadership being too closely identified with this government’s record…. I look forward to Nick’s defence of NHS top-down re-organisation, the Universal Credit fiasco, Bedroom Tax, etc…
expats 5th Mar ’15 – 10:31am
Yes indeed,
Clegg will no doubt throw in a reminder of the Coalition success of withdrawing funding for flood defences (and thereby putting half of Somerset under water) and the great Coalition success of the exponential growth in the need for food banks.
His role in the undoubted foreign affairs success of bombing Libya into chaos whilst aiding Jihadi insurgents will no doubt be something he cannot wait to mention.
It will be a triumph-
If you remember he took on Farago last year because Cameron would not. That worked didn’t it!