For many years, the Labour Party, not just in Saddleworth but in places like Reading too, have decided that it is acceptable to lie and even to stir up hatred and prejudice in order to win elections. Yesterday’s court judgment brings a long-overdue end to that stain on British democracy.
It also seems certain to lead to a by-election which will bring back memories of the 1995 Littleborough & Saddleworth by-election – one which I remember well for the dirty tricks and indeed violence of the Labour campaign and the delight when Liberal Democrat Chris Davies won the seat. I look forward to visiting the area again.
Let’s first of all be clear at the links between the vile Woolas campaign and the approach of Reading Labour. The local community website Saddleworth News (http://www.saddleworthnews.com/) reports none other than runaway former MP Martin Salter as backing Woolas’ style in an online discussion around the start of the court case: ‘Among those to take part was former Labour MP Martin Salter, who supported his former colleague: “Phil tends to tell it like it is which is why those of us who know him hold the man in such high regard.”’
- This should come as no surprise when you consider some of the false statements Labour has penned in Reading over the years:
Lies and smears over more than a decade claiming falsely that Lib Dems wanted to exclude Reading pupils from the Maiden Erleigh School catchment area
A smear that all Green Party candidates were associated with animal rights terrorists (I don’t like the way some Greens support some of the less savoury elements of the animal rights movement, but there are limits….)
Completely false statements in Abbey Ward this year that Lib Dems were going to charge for the first residents’ parking permit per household, in a leaflet that turned out to be written by their councillors and not seen by their agent
A wide range of personal attacks and smears against various of our candidates, normally hidden by translations into other languages, or hidden in last-minute literature in an attempt to make it impossible to respond. (A trick we’re well aware of, to the extent that one year we’d written the leaflet rebutting a particular personal Labour attack before we’d seen or heard of the leaflet!)
Plus, of course, the usual false claims that the Lib Dems are running a poor third and can’t win in Redlands or Katesgrove…..
The truth about Reading Labour Party is that they cross the boundaries of robust debate in election campaigns, and resort to baseless lies and smears. Admittedly, this is a step better than their election fraud in Redlands Ward the last time they won there (see http://www.getreading.co.uk/news/s/11678_voting_fraud_in_redlands_ward), and there are thoroughly decent people in the Labour Party as well as others. However, it is a stain on politics. Today’s judgment is a major step forward in cleaning up politics, and I hope it can be followed through so that the guttersnipes can be removed from politics in Reading too.
More recently I’ve seen a lot of defamatory comments posted against me personally, believed to be by a semi-retired Labour activist with a colourful past, who is close friends to senior figures in that party despite not (to my knowledge) having been a councillor himself. His pseudonym is pretty thinly disguised.
The full judgment against Woolas can be read at; http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2010/nov/05/full-judgment-phil-woolas
I don’t think that the Reading Labour party will change its tactics anytime soon.
The people running it now secured control by expelling and
excluding those who disagreed with them.
That is where the dirty tricks and lies began.
I am speaking from personal experience when i say these
are vicious and unpleasant people.
The Woolas judgement is good news but the point many in
the media are missing is that his campaign would have been
run with the full knowledge of Labour HQ.
Its not going to get any easier for honest politicians like you
and your Lib Dem councillor colleagues.
My post on Richard Willis’ blog clarifies the rather limited scale of apparent electoral fraud in 2004 in Redlands ward and that it had no effect on who won (and who lost).
I am getting fed up with the concept and practice that one example of one bad egg gives a licence for all and sundry to smear all party members. And to throw in a slew of irrelevant digs.
Christine, I would highlight my words ‘there are thoroughly decent people in Labour as well as others’ (other parties, that is).
The difficulty I have with your comment is that the evidence of Labour campaigning in Reading is that it is peppered with false statements, from brazen attempts to claim credit for local problems fixed by Lib Dem councillors to the sort of negative smears and blatant lies I have highlighted above. All part of a rather tired Reading Labour campaign template.
The fact that Labour’s 2010 campaigns in Reading West, Abbey, Katesgrove and a few other places too all were run to this template means that it is the Labour Party (which I assume you still subscribe to) actively embracing behaviour on the spectrum inhabited by Woolas. So either accept it, act to change their behaviour from within, or leave.