There are claims from Andrew Gilligan and Guido that the BBC are running hard with the story of postal fraud in Tower Hamlets…..however it looks like they haven’t actually read the BBC report. B-BBC contributor Alan considers the actual facts of the matter.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-17857850
In it the BBC gives the impression that it is Boris Johnson who might be benefiting from the frauds and his supporters running them, and that it is Labour and Tower Hamlet’s council who are having to ensure everything runs smoothly and legally.
Hardly a reflection of Gilligan’s own reporting……
Ken Livingstone’s supporters accused of ‘harvesting’ postal ballot papers
An investigation has been launched into alleged postal ballot fraud after claims that some of Ken Livingstone’s supporters have been “harvesting” postal ballot papers.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/london-mayor-election/9218506/Ken-Livingstones-supporters-accused-of-harvesting-postal-ballot-papers.html
and Gilligan says….
‘On Sunday I brought you news of alleged postal vote harvesting by Ken Livingstone’s backers in Tower Hamlets. Bengali voters in the borough’s Spitalfields ward told me how their postal voting papers were collected by workers for Gulam Robbani, a Ken-supporting candidate in a council byelection in Spitalfields on Thursday. This practice – which allows candidates to fill in their own votes on blank ballot papers, or destroy already-completed ballot papers which do not favour them – is prohibited by the Electoral Commission.’
No mention of the ‘Ken’ connection on the BBC…..or Lutfur Rahman and his shady practices…..but then the BBC has studiously ignored Lutfur Rahman’s activities for a long time….why? Anything to do with Islam/immigration is handled with a great degree of care, a carpet and a brush. It would seem that the BBC are providing Ken Livingstone with some free anti-Boris black propaganda.
Interesting that the BBC article doesn’t even mention the real reasons at all. They also highlight the ‘good ol’ Labour councillors are so concerned and gosh, it’s all the students fault:
“A spokeswoman for Tower Hamlets Council said: “We work to the full extent of our powers to ensure the electoral register is as accurate as possible – in fact we conducted extra visits to over 4,700 electors in the days before the register closed.
“As a result we removed 890 electors from the list as they had moved on.”
She said it was important not to confuse fraudulent activity with a register that changes by up to 20 per cent a month because of a population that was “highly mobile”, with a high proportion of students and restaurant workers.
Ah, so that’s the problem then? NOT!!
More smearing from the BBC, why would you expect anything else?
The clue that the bBC report is corrupt; is that it says the problem is caused by workers, well there are not many of them in Tower Hamlets.
Have they changed the story because I can’t see any suggestion that Boris is a beneficiary?
I think it’s the subtle implication because, as you rightly say, it doesn’t say Boris specifically:
It says there is a problem, but doesn’t say whose supporters are under suspicion. It also makes a big point that it is Labour councillors who have referred the matter to police. Therefore, if Labour Councillors, alone, have reported their suspicions it must be their opponents who are to be investigated – ergo it’s Boris’s supporters who must be doing it.
That’s exactly how clever and dishonest the BBC are. They give you enough information to draw the conclusion they want you to draw, but cannot be accused of lying on it as there is nothing specifically naming any party’s supporters. Evil.
I was going to say the same thing until I realized that by reporting that a Conservative minister said it was important that the election wasn’t ruined by fraud and that people with “Asian” names wrote that there was evidence of fraud, we’re supposed to quietly assume it benefited Livingstone.
BBC: We’ll give you hints, but won’t come out and tell you because we’ve already been told by Ken’s team to back off. Delivering Quality First.
More from ‘Telegraph’s Andrew GILLIGAN:
“Tower Hamlets electoral fraud: here’s some more evidence ”
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/andrewgilligan/100153760/tower-hamlets-electoral-fraud-heres-some-more-evidence/
Excerpt from Andrew GILLIGAN, above:
“The people accused of the malpractice last week are big Ken supporters – and the postal ballot papers have now gone out for next week’s mayoral contest. I still think, despite the evidence of today’s ComRes poll, that it will be close. If it is very close, Boris v Ken could be decided by postal votes in Tower Hamlets. That’s a prospect to frighten anybody who believes in free and fair elections.”
Somebody should make a phony complaint about voter fraud from Boris’s camp and see if the BBC rushes to investigate.
Thanks for the link. From the insistence on the World at One yesterday that this was by no means an Asian problem I suspected that Muslims were involved.
Because it never happened in Bradford West……
Just like the paedophile gangs then – not specific to any one ‘community’.
‘The BBC – we re-write history as it happens’.
‘Independent’:
“Widespread allegations of electoral fraud in Tower Hamlets .
“Complaints come as a senior judge warns local elections present ‘enormous opportunities’ for vote rigging.”
[Excerpt]:
“Meanwhile Tory councillor Peter Gold has handed over his own dossier of evidence to the Electoral Commission detailing a number of properties in the borough with a suspiciously high number of recently registered postal voters.”
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/widespread-allegations-of-electoral-fraud-in-tower-hamlets-7682075.html
Even ‘The Independent’ notes the role of local Tory Party in opposing electoral fraud. INBBC doesn’t.
Cannot wait to see the depression on the faces of the beeboids when Boris wins.
He doesn’t stand a chance – he’ll be slaughtered like Galloway’s opponents were. Not because the majority of genuine voters are against him (I believe he is just ahead in the polls) but the postal vote scam will be huge and nearly all “voting” for Ken.
And, relegated by BBC-NUJ, there’s the Birmingham Labour Party and election fraud:
‘Birmingham Post’:
“Postal vote fraud still rife, says judge who compared Birmingham to ‘banana republic'”
[Excerpt]:-
“The judge who once compared Birmingham to a ‘banana republic’ has warned that voting fraud is still rife – and accused politicians of failing to tackle the problem.
“Deputy High Court judge Richard Mawrey said almost nothing had changed since his landmark ruling in 2005.
“In that case, he found there had been a Birmingham-wide campaign by parts of the local Labour Party to use bogus postal votes to counter the adverse impact of the Iraq war on the party’s support.
“Postmen were intimidated into handing over sacks full of postal votes, ballot papers were changed once votes had been cast, using correction fluid, and police discovered six men in a warehouse with 274 unsealed postal votes.”
Read More http://www.birminghampost.net/news/politics-news/2012/04/26/postal-vote-fraud-still-rife-says-judge-who-compared-birmingham-to-banana-republic-65233-30847187/#ixzz1tEZ7nYLc
In every nation wide election, whether its for councils or Parliament, in the past 50 years at least one labour candidate has been found to have benefited from postal fraud. In virtually every case nothing has been done about it.
Now imagine if there was even a sniff that a Tory had had one false vote for them. What would the BBC report then?
There was one place a few years ago (maybe the last GE) where there were accusations against the Conservatives. Co-incidentally the accused Conservatives had asian names as well!!
“When did Britain become the kind of country that tolerates voting fraud?
“Labour’s massive expansion of postal voting opened the door to electoral fraud. ”
(by Graeme Archer)
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/9232884/When-did-Britain-become-the-kind-of-country-that-tolerates-voting-fraud.html