Why did Labour lose two of the three seats in Leicester in the middle of a landslide?

Leicester was an exception at last year's general election. Labour lost two of the city's three seats - one to the Conservatives and one to an Independent.

Alistair Jones. associate professor in politics at De Montfort University, looks at those results and at Leicester politics in general in the current issue of Liberator:

All three Leicester parliamentary constituencies have been treated akin to personal fiefdoms by previous Labour MPs, going back to the 1980s and 1990s. Consequently, the central and regional party had held little sway. In 2023 and 2024, the central Labour Party decided to reassert its authority, regardless of the short-term electoral cost. 

Leicester may be one city but it has three parliamentary constituencies which rarely communicate with each other, even – or is it especially – when all three MPs come from the same party. That local infighting has left a rather nasty legacy for the Labour Party, which is being exploited and exacerbated with allegations of racism. 

To read his article, download the current Liberator (issue 427) from the magazine's website - there's no charge.

I'm far too modest to point out that, in November 2023, I wrote:

The Conservatives have been gaining ground in local elections in this part of the city, which means that the seat [Leicester East] is less safe for Labour than it looks on paper. And that means the question of whether Vaz, Webbe or both of them will stand as an Independent at the next election really matters.

Labour demands probe into Leicester South Monster Raving Loony Party candidate

There's a new theory about how Labour's Jonathan Ashworth contrived to lose his Leicester South seat at the last general election. Apparently, it's all the fault of the Monster Raving Loony Party.

A report from The i explains:

Labour is demanding a police investigation into possible breaches of electoral law claiming an Official Monster Raving Loony candidate was used to help unseat a shadow cabinet member, i can reveal.

In one of the shock results of the election, Jonathan Ashworth who was tipped for a major role in Sir Keir Starmer's government, lost his seat to an independent candidate who campaigned against Labour’s policy towards Israel.

Mr Ashworth lost the Leicester South seat by fewer than 1,000 votes after a campaign by rival Shockat Adam focused on events in Gaza and Labour’s reluctance to demand a ceasefire.

An i investigation has learned that an occasional campaign volunteer for Mr Adam, Amaar Suliman, also ran against Ashworth as the candidate for the Official Monster Raving Loony Party under the name Mr Ezechiel Adlore.

As Mr Adlore, Mr Suliman spent almost £2,000 producing and distributing thousands of leaflets across the constituency during the election campaign criticising Mr Ashworth.

Mr Suliman’s fliers attacked Mr Ashworth’s 13-year record representing the constituency. They were headed "Missing MP alert" and asked voters "have you ever seen this man?".

Labour say they want the police to investigate the relationship between Mr Adam, now Leicester South’s MP, and Mr Suliman as they believe it raises questions over the accuracy of Mr Adam’s election expenses.

The i goes on to say that both Adam and Suliman deny any suggestion of wrongdoing and Adam has described any claim the two worked together as "bizarre and false".

h/t Mark Pack.

71 Liberal Democrat MPs were elected yesterday

Yesterday was an extraordinary day. We now have the largest Liberal or Liberal Democrat representation in the Commons since the brief revival of 1923-4. A total of 71 Lib Dem MPs were elected, and that could rise to 72, depending on the result of a second recount tomorrow in Inverness, Skye and West Ross-shire. Only one piece of music will do.

This is a vindication of the party's strategy and general election campaign. I was sceptical of the imaginative use being made of opinion polls, but in the end this still underestimated the hunger of the prosperous South to get rid of the Conservatives.

I voted Labour in Harborough - given our party's pleas to Labour supporters to vote for us in our target seats, it would have felt hypocritical not to - but the Tory held on here. As I suspected, Labour just didn't have enough activists here to win.

Britain's most unpredictable seat - Leicester East - was won by the Conservatives. A year ago, following the gains they made there in Leicester City Council elections, this would have been no great surprise. But, from what I heard, there was a feeling that the Tories had chosen a weak candidate for the parliamentary seat. True or not, this didn't stop her winning.

Labour also lost Leicester South, where Jonathan Ashworth lost to an Independent who stood in protest against the party's policy on Gaza. It is worrying that voting in the city is beginning to reflect religious affiliations, a process perhaps encouraged by the Tories' courting of the Hindu community.

And a word too for Matthew Green, who came close to winning South Shropshire (which is largely the old Ludlow seat that he represented between 2001 and 2005). Next year's county council elections in Shropshire should be interesting.

Lord Bonkers' Diary: I'll be damned if I'll pull out of Europe

The new issue of Liberator has arrived. We have had a snippet from Radical Bulletin. We have had my article on Charles Kennedy, Iraq and the Chilcot Report.

Which means there is nothing else for it: we have to spend some time with the old brute.

Close textual analysis suggests these pages from Lord Bonkers' Diary were written round about the 12th of July.

As they say in Rutland, a fortnight is a long time in politics. 


I'll be damned if I am going to pull out of Europe 

I write these words on the terrace of the Hotel Splendide, Antibes. The British people, egged on by liars, charlatans and a buffoon in an ill-fitting Donald Trump fright wig, may have voted to pull out of Europe, but I ‘ll be damned if I am going to. Judging by last Tuesday’s Manchester Guardian, which a fellow guest kindly passed on to me yesterday evening, the old country has not yet returned to its senses. In particular, a woman whom I swear I remember as a clerk at one of the Bank of Rutland’s less important branches looks set to be elected leader of the Conservative Party and thus our prime minister.

Meanwhile, the entire shadow cabinet (with the exception of ‘Semtex’ McDonnell and a fellow from Leicester called Ashworth) has resigned, only to find it cannot agree about who should be its unity candidate. The corridors of Westminster ring with their scuffles, curses and brawling, but no winner emerges. I have been known to say harsh things about the Scottish Nationalists, but I am forced to admit that they now appear a beacon of good sense in a naughty world. They are talking of holding a second referendum north of the border, and who can blame them? We are thinking of having one in Rutland ourselves.

Lord Bonkers was Liberal MP for Rutland South West, 1906-10.

Jon Ashworth speaks out on the leadership - the Tory leadership

592 - words from Jon Ashworth on Tory leadership crisis
0     - words from Jon Ashworth on Labour leadership crisishttps://t.co/U3MWR7qyfa

— Dan Martin (@Danjamesmartin) June 29, 2016

The other day I blogged about the mystery of the failure of Leicester South's Jon Ashworth to resign from the shadow cabinet.

Since then the mystery has only deepened. Jeremy Corbyn is down to 40 supporters in the parliamentary party, but Jon Ashworth has still not resigned. He sits their among the Cat Smiths and Richard Burgons.

Yet neither has he offered any public explanation of his decision.

It has been suggested to me locally that Ashworth has stayed put because he is on the hard left. But, as I said in my earlier post, he was an Ed Miliband loyalist. And people from that strand of Labour thinking have now resigned.

The other story I have been told makes more sense: he is under severe pressure from his constituency party. But then, as my source said, so are many Labour MPs and it didn't stop them resigning.

Still, Ashworth has spoken out. As Dan Martin, the Leicester Mercury's political correspondent tweeted earlier, he has written an article for Labour List on the Conservative leadership:

The Conservatives have revealed themselves as incapable of providing the answers we need and as ever, it is those most in need who will suffer the most at the hands of their failure. David Cameron might be losing his job, but he won’t be the hardest hit.

The Mystery of Jon Ashworth's failure to resign

Shouting match going on between Jeremy Corbyn's spokesman and Jon Ashworth outside PLP. Accuses Corbyn's team of "spreading lies" about MPs.

— Adam Bienkov (@AdamBienkov) June 27, 2016

With so many shadow cabinet ministers having resigned over the last two days, it is worth taking a look at those who have not resigned.

And among them you will find the name of the Leicester South MP Jon Ashworth, who retained his position as shadow minister without portfolio in the rump cabinet of loyalists announced by Jeremy Corbyn this afternoon.

Why hasn't Ashworth resigned like so many of his colleagues?

He is not of the far left: he was an Ed Miliband loyalist parachuted into Leicester South for the 2011 by-election,

One theory is that the anti-Corbyn forces want him to stay in the shadow cabinet so he keeps his seat on the party's national executive. But then Angela Eagle was also on the executive and that didn't stop her resigning.

Demonstrators in Leicester today were demanding that Ashworth support Corbyn. The Leicester Mercury just wants to talk to him.

The tweet above suggests that Ashworth is far from being a Corbyn supporter, but until he explains himself the mystery will remain.

Later. The mystery deepens. That tweet has now been deleted.

Lutfur Rahman with Keith Vaz, Jon Ashworth and Sir Peter Soulsby

BBC News reports:

An east London mayor has been removed from office and a poll declared void after he was found guilty of electoral fraud. 

An Election Commissioner concluded Tower Hamlets mayor Lutfur Rahman breached election rules and must vacate his post immediately.

You can read Richard Mawrey's full judgment on Trial by Jeory.

In 2010 Rahman was chosen to be the Labour candidate for mayor of Tower Hamlets, but was deselected shortly afterwards amid concerns about the selection process and his alleged links with extremist groups.

In November 2010 he stood against the official Labour candidate as an independent and won the election.

Which made it odd that he travelled to Leicester the following year as an honoured guest of the city's Labour bigwigs. His visit came as the city was facing council elections, its first mayoral election and a parliamentary by-election in the Leicester South constituency.

I blogged about this visit at the time, linking to a video of it on a blog written by David Maclean, then the Leicester Mercury's political correspondent.

That blog has vanished, taking the video with it, but today I found this report of the event from Channel S, an Asian news station.

"Politicians: Only in it for themselves!" Leicester, 7 March

Unlock Democracy Leicestershire is holding a a public meeting on the state of politics at the Secular Hall in Leicester on Thursday 7 March.

Held under the title "Politicians: Only in it for themselves!" it will feature a panel comprising:

• Jon Ashworth MP
• Andrew Bridgen MP
• Professor Steven Fielding
• Roger Helmer MEP

So no Liberal Democrat then (unless I have misjudged the politics of the admirable Steven Fielding).

Still, the organisers say the audience will get the chance to contribute and promise tea and biscuits.

You can read more about the event on the Unlock Democracy website. And more about Leicester Secular Hall on the Leicester Secular Society site.

How should Richard III be remembered in Leicester?

Two ideas have emerged in recent days, one of which I can support and one I can't.

First the good news. Leicester's elected mayor Sir Peter Soulsby is talking about opening a museum and visitor centre to mark the discovery of Richard's bones (if they are Richard's bones) in the city.

According to the Leicester Mercury (though it is not clear on what authority) one of the buildings under consideration is the old Alderman Newton school, which stands right next to the Greyfriars site where the bones were found. It is shown above in a photo I took on one of the open days at the dig.

The archaeologist who took us round remarked, perhaps a little fancifully, on the resemblance between the large window in the end wall of the school and the tracery from the monastery they had just dug up. (Window tracery, being hard to reuse, was one of the few bits of that building that had not been carted away centuries ago.) He speculated that the school's Victorian builders may have unearthed it themselves when digging its foundations.

Anyway, the newspaper quotes Sir Peter as saying:

"We do need to do something to tell the story of Richard, the story of Henry Tudor and the story of Bosworth, because they are part of the story of Leicester. 

"Fortunately, there are a number of buildings that could be used for this purpose. I am not yet in a position to say which one it could be. We are exploring possible uses with owners. 

"We have to be aware these are very difficult financial times, but this is a unique opportunity for Leicester. 

"Some modest investment now will be well worth it in the future."

And I agree with all of that.

But Jon Ashworth (Labour MP for Leicester South) got carried away, again in the Mercury, the other day:

if it does turn out to be Richard, we have to keep him in Leicester – after all he has rested here for 500 years. 

I would argue he should be laid to rest at Leicester Cathedral and enjoy a state funeral. 

State funerals in the past have taken place at Westminster Abbey and St Paul's Cathedral but wouldn't it be splendid if Leicester hosted what, I think, would be the first state funeral outside of London? Of course other cities are also laying claim to Richard. 

I had to defend Leicester's claim to an unsympathetic audience on BBC Radio York, but, as always, I strongly fought Leicester's corner.

As a graduate of both York and Leicester Universities I have some claim to objectivity here, and I agree that Richard (if it is Richard) should be reburied in Leicester Cathedral.

But a state funeral? So far the dig has been handled with good taste - there have been no pictures of the skeleton issued, for instance - but this idea is danger of taking things over the top.

Richard would have had a funeral when he was buried at Greyfriars. A dignified short service and interment at the Cathedral is all that is required. Let's not turn the thing into a circus.

A Leicester monument to the last Labour government

From the Leicester Mercury last week:

New face-recognising equipment at the Post Office will be used to record the identity of foreign nationals in the city. 

The Post Office downstairs in WHSmith, in Gallowtree Gate, Leicester, unveiled its new "biometric unit" yesterday. 

Officials demonstrated how the equipment can read fingerprints and analyse faces of people applying for a Biometric Residence Permit, which were first launched in 2008.

Orwellian "face-recognising equipment" installed in a Post Office crammed into the basement of a shop because the Crown Post Office has been closed. What better monument could there be to the last Labour government?

It seems that Labour agrees with me. According to this tweet from Liz Davies, all three of the city's MPs turned up to watch.

At launch of#Leicester biometric residence permit service in WHSmiths w @keith_vazmp @jonashworth 1st non-crown post office location in GB
— Liz Kendall MP (@leicesterliz) September 21, 2012

Marc Ramsbottom chosen to fight Manchester Central by-election

According to the Manchester Evening News (which should know), Marc Ramsbottom, the former leader of the Liberal Democrats on Manchester council, has been selected as the party's candidate in the Manchester Central by-election. Marc lost his council seat in May's elections.

That contest is taking place because the sitting Labour MP Tony Lloyd is standing down from the Commons to stand for election as Greater Manchester's first police and crime commissioner. It is expected that the by-election will take place on the same date as that contest: November 15

Marc Ramsbottom's Labour opponent will be Lucy Powell. Like Jon Ashworth, who was Labour's candidate in the Leicester South by-election last year, she is an aide to Ed Miliband.

Interestingly, the Manchester Evening News says the Liberal Democrats are describing the contest as a 'two horse race' - a striking figure of speech.

Leicester Labour lavishes praise on Lutfur Rahman

At the end of June I mentioned Andrew Gilligan's accusation that staff from the London Borough of Tower Hamlets had canvassed for Labour in Leicester in their work time.

I have not learned anything further about the truth of otherwise of that, but David Maclean at the Leicester Mercury has turned up footage of Lutfur Rahman, the Mayor of Tower Hamlets, and his party being thanked afterwards by leading figures in the Labour Party in Leicester. It's so dull that I am not inflicting it on you, but you can see it if you can follow the link to David's blog. The Labour bigwigs who feature include Keith Vaz, Sir Peter Soulsby and Jon Ashworth.

[Later. David's blog has disappeared, taking the video with it, but you can a contemporary TV news report of the event elsewhere on this blog.]

What is remarkable about the occasion is that Rahman is not a member of the Labour Party. More than that, as Maclean points out, he was removed as Labour's candidate for mayor of his borough on 21 September with the following statement:

Having received a number of serious allegations concerning both the eligibility of participating voters and the conduct of Lutfur Rahman, the NEC has decided to investigate the allegations made. 

As a result, administrative action has been taken to remove Lutfur Rahman as a candidate pending the investigation. Nominations for Tower Hamlets mayor close this week and in the circumstances the NEC had no option but to impose another candidate.

After being dropped by Labour Rahman stood as an independent against the Labour candidate and won the election. You might think that would make him unpopular in Labour circles, but they don't seem to mind in Leicester.

Thanks to the reader who drew this to my attention - and for the observation that there is only one woman present and she leaves with Ashworth after 30 seconds.

Staff paid for by taxpayers campaigned for Labour in the Leicester South by-election

Or so Andrew Gilligan claimed in the Daily Telegraph earlier this week:

A London council leader used staff paid by the taxpayer to campaign for the Labour Party in a recent parliamentary by–election.

Lutfur Rahman, the controversial directly elected mayor of Tower Hamlets, took a coachload of people, including a number working for the council, to canvass for Labour at the Leicester South by–election. The visit took place during working hours on a weekday. Asked by The Daily Telegraph, the council refused repeatedly to deny that the staff were on duty at the time.

Gilligan goes on to explain that Rahman was elected as an independent after being expelled from the Labour Party for his alleged links to an extremist Muslim group. His visit to Leicester to support Labour’s candidate, Jon Ashworth, was part of aso far unsuccessful attempt to win readmission to the party.

In other news, the shop (pictured above) used as the Lib Dem HQ in the by-election looks set to become a florist.

Lib Dems hold on to second place in Leicester South by-election

Here is the result from the Leicester South by-election, which was declared earlier this evening. The count took so long because there were also the City council and Mayoral elections and the AV referendum to count in the city.

Jon Ashworth (Labour) 19,771
Zuffar Haq (Lib Dems) 7,693
Jane Hunt (Conservative) 5,169
Abhijit Pandya (UKIP) 994
Howling Laud Hope (Official Monster Raving Loony) 553

In the context of yesterday's other results, Zuffar Haq did well to hold on to second place. It is also good to see UKIP's candidate doing almost as badly as he deserved. I am reliably informed that Mr Pandya's fellow party members were less than impressed by his antics.

Later. I was tired last night and forgot to make this point. If Zuffar Haq had been our candidate in the 2004 by-election he would still be MP for Leicester South today.

Labour's candidate in Leicester South opposes AV

Mark Pack on Liberal Democrat Voice has picked up a Leicester Mercury report of a by-election hustings held in Evington earlier this week.

Mark highlights a comment made about AV made by the Labour candidate Jon Ashworth:

Frankly, I don’t really care – I’ve got more important things to think about.

As Mark comments:

There are some good and genuine electoral reform campaigners in the Labour Party, but this dismissive comment from someone who – if there had been no by-election – would after all have been Head of Party Relations for a man who penned a manifesto calling for a referendum (and for it to be passed) and who is now trying to win over his party to electoral reform shows just how precarious their position is in the Labour Party.

In fact it appears that Ashworth went further than that and told the meeting that he would vote against AV. The Mercury's rather odd English here does not help, but this is what its report says:

A member of the audience asked whether the candidates were for or against the alternative voting system.

Mr Haq said he was in favour of the system, which both Ms Hunt and Mr Ashworth said they would vote against it.

Chalk one up to the dinosaurs.

Zuffar Haq: The ideal candidate for Leicester South

“It’s Lord Bonkers!” cried a voice as I entered the Lib Dem campaign office for the Leicester South by-election on Saturday. The voice had a Dudley accent, so I assume it belonged to my former Harborough District Council colleague Phil Knowles. He will be Spoken To.

A busload of activists had arrived from London earlier in the day and been sent off to the leafy suburb of Knighton. So I set off with our candidate Zuffar Haq to make sure they were not lost or dehydrated and lend them a hand.

It was a lovely sunny afternoon and most sensible people had gone out for the day, so I did not learn a great deal about the way the campaign is going. But I heard enough to know that in Zuffar we have the ideal candidate for Leicester South.

I first became aware of him when he started appearing on regional television news as a campaigner on Leicester health issues. This was before I knew Zuffar was a Liberal Democrat, but I was impressed even then by how calm and personable he was. Later I was to get to know him well when he became our parliamentary candidate in Harborough.

But in Leicester South he seems even more in his element. He grew up and went to school in the constituency – even in the short time I was with him we came across the father of someone with whom he had been at Lancaster Boys (the school that featured in Gareth Malone’s series “Boys Don’t Sing”). I also heard him slip into Punjabi to speak to an elderly Asian voter.

Zuffar is also a businessman and he is known across Leicester for his charitable work – for more on that see a blog post by Mark Pack.

While I was with Zuffar one Conservative supporter, quite unprompted, said he would be voting tactically for us. But then the Tory vote is soft in this constituency. Considering that the Conservatives held Leicester South between 1983 and 1987, their distant third place in the 2004 by-election was a poor result.

Leicester South is a very mixed constituency, but it does contain some of the most attractive suburbs in the East Midlands. These, at least, ought to be natural Tory territory. More generally, the Conservatives’ failure to make progress in attracting votes from the city’s Asian communities – with their beliefs in family and business – is a condemnation, above all, of that party’s lack of vision.

Labour voters, meanwhile, are surely being taken for granted. To the outside observer, most of the party’s energy in Leicester is devoted to its internal faction-fighting. And their candidate Jon Ashworth, Ed Miliband’s PR man, has been parachuted in from outside the constituency - worse than that, from Nottinghamshire.

This is a stark contrast with Zuffar whose grandfather came to Leicester in 1919 and whose father helped establish the city's first mosque. (And if you think having a local candidate is not an issue, you should ask the views of some of the Leicester Labour bigwigs who were kept off the shortlist to ease Ashworth's path to the nomination.)

Zuffar told me he believes that the Asian community’s previous automatic support for Labour is breaking down. I heard him tell younger Asian votes to google “Zuffar Haq health” or “Zuffar Haq charity” to see what he is about.

This is an odd by-election in that it is taking place in parallel with Leicester’s first Mayoral election, and that contest is getting more media attention. And there are only five candidates standing in Leicester South against eleven in the citywide Mayoral contest.

This suggests to me that, with a strong candidate like Zuffar Haq, there is a chance for the Liberal Democrats to slip under the political radar and achieve a better result in Leicester South than most commentators expect.

So do come to Leicester South to help Zuffar Haq. Your time will be well used. And it you want to know how to find the campaign HQ or where to eat and drink, an earlier post of mine can help.

Only five candidates in the Leicester South by-election

Nominations have closed for the Leicester South by-election on 5 May and there are just five candidates:

• Jon Ashworth (Labour)
• Zuffar Haq (Liberal Democrat)
• Howling Laud Hope (Monster Raving Loony)
• Jane Hunt (Conservative)
• Abhijit Pandya (UKIP)

My prediction - "this is no Barnsley Central: we are not going to finish sixth" - is looking safer by the day.

When Jonathan Ashworth became Jon Ashworth

Yesterday I noted that Labour's candidate in the Leicester South by-election had metamorphosised from Jonathan Ashworth to Jon Ashworth.

I am reliably informed that this transformation took place halfway through Labour's internal selection process.

Leicester South: Jonathan Ashworth turns out to be Jon Ashworth

On the way home from visiting the tin tabernacle (and much else that I shall share with you presently) I picked up a discarded leaflet at Leicester station. It turned out to come from the Labour candidate in the by-election on 5 May.

The first thing to note is that he is standing as Jon Ashworth not Jonathan Ashworth.

There is a pledge to fight the "unfair Tory cuts". He does not say what fair cuts Labour would make instead or explain why the Labour-run council decided to freeze the city's council tax this year.

He also says he and his wife "will be proud to live here in Leicester". That is nice to know, but people move to Leicester every day. You don't have to win a by-election first.

Most of the leaflet is pretty anodyne stuff. The only real point of interest is his claim to have "a strong working-class background". That is unusual in someone at the top of the Labour party these days. And certainly unusual in someone called Jonathan.

Can any reader cast light on this?

Leicester Labour at each other's throats

It is an open secret that all is not sweetness and light in Leicester Labour Party, particularly following the blatant way in which Jonathan Ashworth was parachuted in to fight the forthcoming by-election in Leicester South.

Even so, an account of the latest meeting of the Labour group on the city council, published on the blog of the Leicester Mercury's political correspondent David MacLean, makes remarkable reading:

A row between a local councillor and a political figure came close to the pair landing blows on each other because of the intense fury, a cabinet member claimed.

Meanwhile a different cabinet member, it is alleged, was left tearful after witnessing the “bullying and arrogance” of one Labour faction. “I can’t put up with this for any longer,” they were heard to say.”

Other claims were made which, even if published as blind items on this blog, would stray into dangerous legal waters.

David's blog will be worth following in the weeks leading up to the by-election.