Imran Khan accuses Channel 4 News of “significantly misleading” questions about Zac Goldsmith’s mayoral campaign
Pakistani politician Imran Khan has accused Channel 4 News of asking “a significantly misleading question” about former brother-in-law Zac Goldsmith’s mayoral literature and insists he’s still backing the Tory hopeful’s bid to succeed Boris Johnson.
Over recent weeks Labour have complained about the tone and content of Goldsmith’s campaign literature which has been crafted to address what the Tories claim are legitimate concerns within London’s BME communities.
During an appearance on Channel 4 news on Friday, Mr Khan was told that Goldsmith’s campaign had issued “a leaflet calling the opponent, Sadiq Khan, radical and divisive as a Muslim” and that the claim had been “seen as a huge offence by the Musilm community here in London.”
In response the former cricketer said: “I don’t know about it. I don’t think the issue of fundamentalism should be brought into this race”.
He later added: “The fundamentalist claim against the opponent, I don’t know what led to it, but maybe that wasn’t a good move”.
Mr Khan’s comments were seized upon by Labour who issued a statement in the name of Hampstead and Kilburn MP Tulip Siddiq, which said: “Zac Goldsmith’s nasty and divisive campaign has been criticised by senior Tories and community leaders from across London.
“Now even his own former brother-in-law, Imran Khan, has criticised his campaign.
“Goldsmith should get a grip on Crosby and his campaign managers and put a stop to this disgusting campaign immediately.
“I have no doubt that he will look back on this after the election and feel utterly ashamed.”
However footage of the interview has now been pulled from Channel 4’s website and YouTube page and Imran Khan says he was commenting based on the description of the literature in question which he had not seen at the time and now believes to be “misleading”.
In a statement he said: “When I was interviewed by Channel 4 News on Friday I was asked a significantly misleading question about the London Mayoral election.
“Specifically I was asked to respond to campaign literature which, I was incorrectly told, referred to Sadiq Khan’s faith and suggested he was ‘radical and divisive as a Muslim’. I have now seen the literature in question and it is clear that it says no such thing.
“Khan’s faith was not an issue in these leaflets or in any aspect of Zac’s campaign to become Mayor of London, which he is conducting with integrity, honesty, and by appealing to Londoners regardless of their colour or creed.”
Londoners will elect a new Mayor and the 25 members of the London Assembly on May 5th. Candidates for Mayor include Conservative Zac Goldsmith, Labour’s Sadiq Khan, Liberal Democrat Caroline Pidgeon, the Green party’s Sian Berry and UKIP’s Peter Whittle.
http://www.mayorwatch.co.uk/imran-k...llowing-criticism-of-zac-goldsmiths-campaign/
Zac Goldsmith attack on Sadiq Khan over links with 'extremist' imam backfires
Zac Goldsmith posed for a photo with a “repellent” imam he has previously criticised London mayor rival Sadiq Khan for sharing a platform with.
The Conservative London mayoral candidate yesterday described Suliman Gani as “one of the most repellent figures in this country”.
Mr Gani, a cleric from Mr Khan’s Tooting constituency, has condemned homosexuality and reportedly said women are “subservient”.
However, in the wake of Mr Goldsmith's comments, which were published in an interview in the
Evening Standard, Mr Gani posted online a photo of himself standing alongside Mr Goldsmith.
“Oh no, I just read that Zac apparently calls me 'one of the most repellent figures in this country',” Mr Gani said, adding: “Dirty politics.”
In the same interview Mr Goldsmith attacked Mr Khan for giving “platform, oxygen and cover to people who are extremists”. Mr Khan is well known for actively campaigning against extremism.
The Labour candidate said earlier this week he was “disappointed” by the tone of Mr Goldsmith’s campaign.
The Tory candidate has been forced to deny his tactics have been “racist” in using attack lines that seem to highlight Mr Khan’s Muslim faith.
“I’m sorry he is allowing those running his campaign to lock away the real Zac Goldsmith and put forward this person that I don’t recognise,” Mr Khan said.
Labour candidate Sadiq Khan in Westminster (Getty)
Former Labour leader Ed Miliband also made a rare intervention on Wednesday, condemning Mr Goldsmith.
“ thought Zac Goldsmith was better than this gutter [Lynton] Crosby politics – and you can tell he doesn't really believe it,” he said.
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Zac Goldsmith accuses Sadiq Khan of 'giving platform, oxygen and cover to extremists'
A spokesperson for Zac Goldsmith’s campaign said: “There are a million miles between Khan’s repeated errors in judgement and Zac getting approached for a photo by a stranger.”
The London mayoral election takes place on 5 May alongside the London Assembly elections, and on the same day as the Scottish Parliament, Welsh Assembly, and some local council elections.
Polls give Mr Khan solid lead lead over Mr Goldsmith, with the Labour candidate doing best in inner London and among young people and the Conservative candidate doing best in outer London.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/u...attacked-sadiq-khan-for-meeting-a6983751.html
London mayoral race: Zac Goldsmith accused of playing with fire
On a London council estate last week, Zac Goldsmith – the Conservatives’ mayoral candidate – launched his manifesto with pledges on transport, housing and jobs. When he sits down to talk to reporters, no one asks about any of that.
Instead there’s just one subject he’s quizzed on: the racial politics of London. “Are you a racist?” is one of first questions. “Absurd,” replies the candidate. Things go downhill from there.
To some extent Goldsmith has only himself to blame – courting controversy by repeatedly attacking his Labour opponent Sadiq Khan, a former human rights lawyer, as being soft on crime and “providing cover to extremists”.
Goldsmith’s campaign has also sought to divide London’s faith-based communities. People with apparently Sikhs and Hindu names have been sent leaflets warning that a vote for Khan could lead to “a wealth tax on family jewellery”. Muslims, when they are mentioned, are “backward and sectarian”.
For many, Goldsmith’s campaign – he is advised by Tory election guru Lynton Crosby’s firm - is a dangerous attempt to win votes not by denouncing bigotry but by making subliminal appeals to it.
For critics, the Tory divide-and-rule strategy is playing with fire in as cosmopolitan a city as London – because it seeks to gain votes by creating community tensions where none existed.
London Labour MPs say they first noticed the trend during the last general election, when the Tories won the key bellwether seat of Harrow East by consolidating the Hindu Gujarati vote, a third of the electorate, behind their candidate.
Leaflets circulated in the seat called on Hindus to vote Tory as Labour and the Liberal Democrats had supported laws banning caste discrimination.
Shazad Amin, CEO of MEND, a thinktank which seeks wider Muslim voter engagement, said it was “a disgraceful spectacle to see Goldsmith’s campaign resort to incendiary and divisive rhetoric in this mayoral competition”.
He added: “He should be talking about the inequalities facing Muslims and other groups in London, not throwing around false accusations of extremism.” Amin’s organisation has links with senior Tories – Crosby appeared as their guest at the Tory party conference fringe in 2014.
Yet he describes Goldsmith’s tactics as “unbecoming of anyone wanting to lead a city like London that is so successfully multiethnic and multiracial”. He added: “From what we’ve seen so far, Londoners can be forgiven for wondering if Zac will be a mayor who works to bring London’s diverse communities together or one who will drive them apart.”
Others evince real surprise over Goldsmith’s stance. Over previous years, he had worked hard to win over many in the Muslim community, presenting himself as a maverick free thinker with impeccable green credentials.
Last year he gave a well-received speech at the Ramadan dinner of the Islamic Relief charity, telling the audience how he had read the Qur’an and of his visits to Pakistan to see his sister Jemima, who was married from 1995 to 2004 to Pakistani politician and former cricketer Imran Khan.
“He really charmed us,” said one who heard him speak. “Many in the community looking for an alternative to Labour’s machine politics were ready to give him a chance. Now we won’t.”
There is logic to Goldsmith’s campaign rhetoric. The Tories’ vote share among some ethnic minority voters has been steadily rising as the party’s toxic legacy of racism and apartheid support disappears from collective memory.
Boris Johnson, the current Tory mayor, outperformed his party by 40% to win in London in 2012. Three years later in the general election, polls suggested that more Hindus and Sikhs voted Conservative than Labour.
In targeting Hindus, Sikhs, Jews and those of Tamil ethnicity, the Tories are once again courting a suburban semicircle of boroughs in north London that traditionally are more likely to vote Conservative. These communities stretch from Ealing in the west through Harrow and Camden and over to Barking in the east.
Labour strategists also say that by using Khan’s faith, the Conservatives can tap into prejudices in older, whiter, less educated parts of the London electorate – voters hardly well-disposed to Goldsmith’s inherited riches and Eton education.
Despite this, Khan remains the favourite. In the latest polls, Labour’s candidate has extended his lead among first preference votes to eight points over Goldsmith. However, Crosby’s teams have a habit of defying the polls.
One expert on Muslim voting patterns, who requested anonymity as they worked with political parties, said Crosby appeared to be replicating a “mercenary voter” formula in London that worked for the Tories nationally in 2015.
She said the Conservatives’ continual insinuations that Khan is the London “lab rat” of Jeremy Corbyn’s communism, and that he backs extremism is designed to transmit the idea he would be “dangerous” to elect.
“Mercenary voters set aside their usual allegiances,” she said. “In the general election last year, the Tories created the idea of an immediate self-interest of voting Conservative that would deliver stability rather than chaos.
“I wonder if the calculation here, on the racially divisive politics, is to bring out the mercenary instinct among race communities in London.”
http://www.theguardian.com/politics...ce-zac-goldsmith-accused-of-playing-with-fire
