Bradford West by-election - 29th March

[Andrea]

Labour will probably select their candidate during the next weekend. Deadline to send applications is on Monday.

Ralph Berry (Wibsey ward which is in Bradford South) is also going for the Labour nomination. It has been confirmed on twitter by Labour Peer Glenys Thornton (it's her brother in law, apparently).

I guess who will be selected will depend on who will make the shortlist (decided by the NEC panel put in charge). In normal circumstances you can be pretty sure certain names will make to the final shortlist but if it's the NEC to do the work there can sometimes be some interesting omissions.

George Gallaway is apparently set to announce he will run for Respect.

[Andrea]

LD candidate is Jeanette Sunderland, a Cllr for Idle and Thackley ward which is in Bradford East

[Andrea]

Tory candidate is Jackie Whiteley. She stood in Rotherham in 2010 GE and last year she was appointed "Conservative Parliamentary Spokesman for Rotherham" (I suppose waiting for a by-election there that didn't happen)

[Andrea]

I think it's on Sunday. So I suppose we should get a shortlist by tonight

[Andrea]

Labour List reports that the Labour shortlist (not particularly short) for Bradford West is

Shaukat Ali (there’s more than 1 Shaukat Ali in the Labour Party. I suppose he can be the one who is a Rotherham Cllr)

Ralph Berry (Bradford Cllr for Wibsey ward which is in Bradford West constituency)

Rupa Huq www.rupahuq.wordpress.com/about/

Imran Hussain (Bradford Council’s Deputy Leader; Cllr for Toller ward)

Afzal Khan (Manchester Councillor)

Fadel Takrouri (someone from Arabs for Labour. Should be based in the Midlands. Or at least he was in 2010 when he applied for Stoke Central)

Simon Young www.simonyoung.info/cms2/

[Andrea]

Shocker.

A Labour activist was tweeting (is the verb, right?) from the selection meeting and wrote that Hussain got a standing ovation after his speech. And then during the Q&A someone from the floor implied that he was a rubbish councillor before being shouted down.

With a 7 people shortlisted, I wonder if one of them got 0 votes...

[Andrea]

Some election material

Labour
Hussain's pledges are "solemn". They include being proud of Bradford, open a constituency office, fight the police cuts, save the NHS, fight the unfair Tory cuts and attract investements. Hussain is "from Bradford West for Bradford West". He played in the local streets, went to the local school. Pictures of him as a child and his family are attached. The handwriting letters in Labour's leaflets is always written by the same person all over the country.
http://www.electionleaflets.org/leaflets/7037/


Lib Dem
They didn't find any figures to put in a barchart: they simply state that the Conservatives can't win here but the LibDems won in Bradford East
Their strong, outspoken, independent local choice's priorities are: fairer taxes for hard working Bradford families; real action to sort out the city centre; more apprenticeships and jobs in Bradford. Ed Balls features in the leaflet under the Labour being dishonest paragraph.
http://www.electionleaflets.org/leaflets/7034/

The Tories are fighting to save people's postal votes and fighting Labour's something for nothing culture and criminals
http://twitpic.com/8xfspd
http://twitpic.com/8wplzl
http://twitpic.com/8xfwwj

[Andrea]

There's a truly terrible Grauniad article bigging him up for some reason (linky). It's one of those special pieces (often seen for by-elections) that you can play a game of spotting ghastly errors with. The ability of British journalists to write about places in Northern England as if they were thousands of miles away is really quite a remarkable thing.

She has now realized there has been a Con-LD coalition in the 00s
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2012/mar/29/bradford-west-byelection-george-galloway?CMP=twt_gu

Galloway's letter for Bradford Muslim voters
http://www.politicshome.com/uk/article/50087/george_the_muslim%3F.html


GG's fanboys are getting excited on twitter. At what time will they start complaining about postal votes? Salma Yaqoob is already finding bisturbing that there're 10,000 postal voters in Bradford West (figure in line with the 2010 GE postal applications in this constituency)
The man himself is just being as modest as usual: "Sun shining, masses on the move. It's the Bradford Spring! Vote George Galloway today"

[Andrea]

In retrospect it would have been better to have stitched the shortlist in favour of Afzal Khan (who is, whatever else can be said of him, certainly a pro), but then there might have been other issues had that happened.

I guess one of the problems in not selecting Imran Hussain would have been a sort of civil war within the CLP by his cheerleaders. Going back to the hustings, I read that during the Q&A someone asked a question implying Hussain was a crap Cllr and was apparently literally shut down by his fans (the ones who gave him a standing ovation after his speech at the selection meeting).

However, they had an internal agitation in Ealing Southall when the national party ensured one of the local factions' leader didn't get the nomination and in the end it paid off.