Dave Hill has an interesting interview on his Guardian blog with the Tory candidate for Tower Hamlets mayor, Neil King, and his agent, Cllr Peter Golds, the leader of the Conservative group at the town hall. It’s well worth a read, here.
Pay particular attention to the passages near the end in which Cllr Golds suggests he was the victim of dirty tricks at last May’s council elections. Peter, who is openly gay and Jewish, wrote to me about this last week after I exposed anti-Semitic sentiments among some in the Tower Hamlets political scene.
Here’s what he said in his email to me:
In May 2010 I polled 900 votes fewer than my fellow councillor. Tim Archer was above me on the ballot and was also parliamentary candidate, but 900 votes??
All day polling stations were mobbed by supporters of certain Labour candidates. Commonwealth election officials who were present at Polling District BCT 1, Poplar High High Street, were horrified at the intimidation and blatant electioneering by 30 plus supporters of Yes for Mayor and Labour. All of these were Bengali.
Bengali voters were stopped when entering the polling station and in no uncertain terms were reminded of the Jewish origin of my name and in many cases shown a copy of the electoral register where it could be seen that I share a home with another male.
I repeatedly complained to poll staff, the town hall and police. This behaviour continued from 7am until almost 10pm.
Peter named an individual but I am not naming him for legal reasons.
Trial by Jeory 
I’m afraid this is pure fantasy.
I don’t doubt (and indeed as this blog has illustrated) there is anti-semitism lurking behind the thoughts and actions of *some* Muslims; I’m equally sure that there is homophobia in the mix as well. I’m also sure that voter intimidation is a problem in parts of the Borough.
But let’s look at the evidence, and what we know about voter behaviour as well.
There were 6,985 votes cast for Tories in BCT in the locals. Tim Archer received 42% of this vote. Peter got 29.9%. The third placed Tory in BCT got 27.8% of the vote.
By comparison, the top placed Tory in neighbouring Millwall ward got 36% of the Tory vote and the second place Tory got 30%. The third placed Tory got 32%.
So, actually there’s a bit of pattern isnt there? The top placed Tory does quite well. The second and third placed Tories do less well. And this is what you would expect, given that some people only vote once, for the top placed candidate, and some people spread their votes equally between parties, choosing the top placed person in each party.
What’s slightly unexpected is that Archer got a 6% greater share of the Tory vote that the first place Tory in Millwall. Now why might that be?
Tim Archer has been THE face of Conservatism in Poplar and Limehouse/Poplar and Canning Town for the past two General Elections. I think that pretty much accounts fo a 6% difference myself.
But let’s not stop there. Let’s examine the claim in more detail.
Now you have mystery person X apparently brandishing an electoral register showing voters that Peter is gay and a Jew. Who is this mystery person? Ok, stab in the dark, let’s say it’s someone connected to another party & let’s assume it was a Bengali and a Muslim. (We can probably speculate that it wasnt a Labour supporter as the Labour candidates were all white – but actually we dont need to take this step).
Is Peter really saying that mystery person X persuaded 900 (or, if you accept a 6% fall from first to second is par for the course, then around 450) Bengalis who, deciding that Tim Archer was their man then opted not to vote not only for Peter but also not to vote for the other Tory who was standing.
Sorry, I simply don’t believe a word of it: it scores quite highly on the Baroness Warsi scale of electorally unreliable claims.
Correction. Peter apparently does argue it was a Labour supporter. Which makes the claim even more odd: where did those votes go to? Bizarre.
Anti-semitism is a problem in our society, and our community must stand united against it.
Anti-semitism is vile as much as is Islamaphobia. The Tories are full of Islamaphobes and this needs to be stamped out.
The Tories in TH have a track record of trying to raise tensions in the community by pitching whites against the Bangaldeshi community and Muslim and non-Muslim. They are a vile bunch and I hope people see through their nasty covert racist games they play.