Parties respond to anonymous leaflet

East London News:  You can read ELN’s story about the anonymous leaflet circulated just before polling day – making accusations about Spitalfields & Banglatown by-election candidate Gulam Robbani and about Mayor Lutfur Rahman – here:
http://www.eastlondonnews.com/gutter-tactics-depress-robbani-vote-in-spitalfields/.

We said that we’d be asking the main political parties for their responses and we sent them this list of questions:
1.  Do you believe the content of this leaflet constitutes “fair comment”?
2.  Do you believe that this leaflet conforms with election law?
3.  Did this leaflet help the voters in Spitalfields & Banglatown to make their minds up about who to vote for?
4.  Would you support the call for an investigation into this leaflet?
5.  Would you like to see more of this kind of leaflet distributed in future elections?
6.  Do you have any other comment to make on this leaflet?

Here’s what the leaders of the largest two political parties on the Council have told us.  Perhaps typically for politicians, none of them responded directly to our questions and both took the opportunity to put their quotes in their own contexts.

Cllr Peter Golds (Conservative) gave us a characteristically concise but comprehensive answer:
“Nasty, pernicious, anonymous, illegal and as invidious as the ‘Abbas is a wifebeater leaflet’. The police should investigate and prosecute.”

Cllr Joshua Peck (Labour) replied in rather more restricted terms:
“I haven’t seen this leaflet before and the scan you have sent me is practically illegible. I’d condemn anonymous attacks on any candidate, whether published in leaflets or freesheet newspapers.”

Neither did the Chair of Tower Hamlets Labour Party, Chris Weavers, respond to our questions and, unlike the councillors, he fell short of condemning the anonymous leaflet, restricting his response to:  “The Labour Party had nothing to do with this leaflet.”

We have to wait and see whether Tower Hamlets politicians will now leave the personal attacks behind them – at election times and other times – and concentrate on showcasing and debating their policies for the Borough.