Thursday, Apr 21, 2005

It is mid-afternoon near the Museum of Childhood and Oona King, Labour MP for Bethnal Green and Bow, believes she is losing weight as she negotiates another tight staircase in a Tower Hamlets tower block.

The second black woman to sit in a British parliament is accompanied by a multi-racial team of Labour volunteers and Ian McCartney, party chairman, the latest of a number of high-profile government figures to join the local campaign trail.

Ms King is defending a majority of 10,000. The fact that party strategists have to mobilise some of their big hitters in a constituency regarded for decades as a safe Labour seat shows a degree of nervousness.

One of her main opponents is George Galloway, former Labour MP for Glasgow Kelvin. He is standing for the anti-war "coalition" Respect and is hoping to exploit widespread unease over Iraq and the US-led war on terrorism among the local Muslim population, which comprises 40 per cent of the constituency.

Labour strategists insist that Respect will not win and will only succeed in splitting the Labour vote in favour of the Conservative party that came second in the 2001 general election and recently won a seat on the local council.

To add to the tension, both candidates have been the target of Muslim extremists who, although small in number, have turned the spotlight on the east London constituency.

Yesterday an aide to Mr Galloway said the former MP had been "threatened with death" by a gang that denounced him as a "false prophet" even though he opposed the Iraq war. Meanwhile over the weekend, Ms King, who has been criticised for supporting Tony Blair's stand on the war, was pelted with eggs and had her car tyres slashed.

Yet, despite his confrontation, Mr Galloway has taken encouragement from last June's European and local election results that showed Respect overtaking Labour in the constituency and winning its first council seat in Tower Hamlets.

But Ms King insists: "Iraq is the biggest single issue that has upset a lot of people, but it certainly isn't the only issue that people are concerned about, which is why I am still going to be MP after May 5."

At Ms King's first doorstep stands a white youth who speaks in an accent she mistakenly identifies as German. The fact that he happens to be Scottish, like Mr Galloway, provides her with an opportunity to make up for her gaffe.

"Do you have any thoughts on any other candidate?" she asks.

"Galloway . . . I heard some unpleasant things when I lived in Scotland . . . pictures of him with Saddam Hussein which I don't think was a very good thing . . . won't be voting for him," comes the reply.

Along the corridor, a young Somali woman with two children says she will be voting for Mr Galloway and refuses to engage in conversation. Undeterred, Ms King addresses her sons. They won't be old enough to vote for at least 10 years, but Ms King targets their mother through them anyway.

"Now you're clever. Which of you is going to grow up to be a prime minister? Now come on, if I can be an MP you can be a prime minister," she tells them.

Iraq so far has not been mentioned, nor is it being volunteered by this Labour posse. Ms King is instead focusing on issues such as crime and housing.

The Tory candidate, Shahagir Faruk, a Muslim, is strongly critical of Labour's record on this. "We suffer from almost uncontrolled drug dealing on our estates," he says, "and there are flats with serious overcrowding, eight members of a family living in two rooms."

Like Ms King, he is more at ease talking about these issues than defending Tory support for the war in Iraq.

Yet the war in Iraq is on voters' minds and returns to haunt the Labour campaigners. A local community leader, a former Labour voter, tells Mr McCartney that he no longer believes anything Mr Blair says.

"I want to vote for this lady, but I don't want to vote for Tony Blair," he says. "He is a liar, not just on Iraq, but on health and education - just look at our kids going downhill. I want her (Ms King) but I don't want him (Mr Blair) and I don't know about Galloway. I'll probably end up abstaining."

By JIMMY BURNS

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