Electoral law prevents a council from promoting candidates standing in local elections. Has the spirit of the ‘purdah’ period been broken by Brent Council? The Brent Lib Dems seem to think so. Now, I’ve not yet seen the article in question, my copy of the Brent Magazine has been sitting unread since it arrived and usually only gets a slight glance before being recycled. I’ll get a scan and post it. But until then you’ll just have to talk Lib Dem Council Leader Paul Lorbers’ word for it - the Labour council have spent public money on a publication that features a candidate standing in the local election. So the BELD are asking for the Labour party to reimburse the costs of the publication.

The local Greens have been distributing their literature in the wards. They have also made the literature available online so I don’t have to scan it I can link to it from here.

here you go.

Note that Shahrar Ali, candidate in Queen’s Park, will appear in the the Green Party Election Broadcast on BBC 1 tomorrow (APR24) at 1845.

A recent Focus On…Queen’s Park from the Liberal Democrats with the candidates for Councillors showing their opposition to the Queen’s Park tower development.

Also highlighted are the traffic problems that are percieved will blight an already congested Salusbury Road. Well, the development is supposed to address this issue by changing the flow of traffic in the area - but with no tower to route traffic around…..?

The proposal for the tower block in Queen’s Park is a lead topic for each of the parties contesting the electoral ward of Queen’s Park. For Labour it is getting like the Monty Python topic not to be mentioned in front of our hosts for the World Cup. The Lib Dems have made great gains from this thread - well, a sitting (yet not restanding) Councillor defected to Team Yellow with the tower plan as a key issue. The defection as on the front page of this weeks Willesden and Brent Times and the ‘bun fight’ at the Queen’s Park Corral was analysed over a double page spread.

The Green’s in Queen’s Park have made opposing the development symbolic of their opposition to decision making without consultation - a characteristic of Brent Council in their view.

While I have not seen any campaign literature from the Conservatives in Queen’s Park (please forward some if you have it!) the Party is opposing developments in the Dudden Hill area - maybe they have the same tac in QP?

More to come:

• Lib Dem scans….
• Labour negative campaigning against the Lib Dems in Mapesbury
• Scans from the press
• Links to other places….

Thank you for reading.

I noticed these letters written by Dr Shahrar Ali, Green Party candidate for Queen’s Park along with Rupert Degas, to Brent area newspapers recently.

On Brent Labour Council tower block imperatives:

“Whilst this may not come as a revelation to seasoned campaigners, the public admission is a sign of desperation: a local government that denies responsibility for actions that it is going to take on our behalf but against our will.”

On the timing of the planning process:

“Will we have to wait till after the local elections to find out?”