Slough

[stb12]

Slough

[Ports]

www.slough.gov.uk/downloads/download/1246/statement-of-person-notice-of-poll-situation-of-polling-stations-for-parliamentary-general-election-2024

11 candidates incl. 3 independents

Lab: Tan Dhesi
Con: Moni Kaur Nanda
LD: Chelsea Whyte
Reform: Robin Jackson
Green: Julian Edmonds
Workers Party: Adnan Shabbir
Heritage: Nick Smith
Independent Network: Azhar Chohan
Independent: Diana Coad
Independent: Chandra Sekhar Muvvala
Independent: Jaswinder Singh

[doktorb🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️]

From the Telegraph 

A Labour candidate was forced to abandon leafleting outside a mosque on Friday after a crowd barracked him as a “Zionist devil” with “the blood of Palestinian children on his hands”.
Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi, who is fighting for re-election as the MP for Slough in Berkshire, was driven off by men hurling abuse over Labour’s stance on the conflict in Gaza.
Videos posted on X, formerly known as Twitter, show Mr Dhesi handing out flyers to men leaving the Masjid al-Jannah mosque in the centre of Slough after Friday prayers.
But as Mr Dhesi tries to distribute the election material, a group of men hurls invective at the Labour politician while recording the encounter on their camera phones.
“You’ve got the blood of Palestinian children on your hands, you Zionist devil, get out,” shouts one man.
In another video recorded from a different angle, a second man accuses Mr Dhesi of supporting “genocide”.
“He’s a liar! Ignore him the way he ignored Palestine on the ceasefire vote,” the man says.
“He supports Keir Starmer when Keir Starmer says Israel has the right to kill our brothers and sisters, Israel has the right to starve our brothers and sisters, Israel has the right to cut off electricity to our brothers and sisters…. He refused to vote for a ceasefire.”insert quote here

The man intersperses his verbal attacks on Mr Dhesi with calls for people to vote for Azhar Chohan, an independent candidate who is backed by The Muslim Vote – a campaign group that aims to get Muslims to vote against Labour over Gaza.
“He ignored Palestine, he supports genocide,” the man shouts. “Vote Azhar Chohan for Slough.”
After a few minutes, Mr Dhesi and two supporters are forced to extricate themselves from the crowd and leave the area.
One of the men continues to pursue them down the street while filming on his phone. “It’s a place of worship, we don’t need Zionist devils like you,” he shouts. “You’re not welcome, don’t come back here again. This guy, he’s got the blood of Palestinian children on his hands… don’t ever come back here again.”
At one point, several men are also heard chanting: “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free.”
On Friday evening, Mr Dhesi said on X: “Attempts to intimidate, by a small group campaigning for an opponent, won’t deter me from continuing to speak up for all, including for peace in Palestine.
“Grateful to all, especially from our Muslim community, who were appalled by such behaviour and sent messages of support.”

[heslingtonian]

Possibly this is a candidate for lowest Conservative to Labour swing alongside Leicester East. Together they could be the Bethnal Green & Bow and Bradford West of this election.

[batman]

There are a lot of Sikh voters here too though. And not devoid of White British either

[londonseal80]

Jun 16, 2024 9:36:52 GMT heslingtonian said:

Possibly this is a candidate for lowest Conservative to Labour swing alongside Leicester East. Together they could be the Bethnal Green & Bow and Bradford West of this election.

Can’t disagree with that!

[steve]

Jun 16, 2024 11:08:33 GMT swingometer said:

Jun 16, 2024 9:36:52 GMT heslingtonian said:

Possibly this is a candidate for lowest Conservative to Labour swing alongside Leicester East. Together they could be the Bethnal Green & Bow and Bradford West of this election.

How so, this seat is obviously mish mashed with everyone, the Muslim block won’t have much of an impact

I don't know what the ethnic and religious makeup of the constituency is but for the town the population is 30% Muslim so it may have more impact than you think. The Muslim community also appears to be highly politically involved with half of the town's cllrs being of that religion.

[heslingtonian]

I wasn't just thinking about Gaza but also the travails of the former Labour Council and recent local election results.

[batman]

I don't think that the travails of Slough council will have all that much impact in a general election especially now that Labour has been voted out.

[Pete Whitehead]

Sibboleth is fond of saying that general elections are not applied local elections and I tend to agree with that view. heslingtonian clearly takes the opposite view

[Deleted]

LAB 35%
CON 29%
WPB 23%
INDS 4%
LD 3%
REF 3%
OTH 3%

This was a tough call, but Labour don't run the council now and the protest vote will likely be split. Tories will hold up a bit better here because of the large South Asian vote - specifically Hindus and (maybe) some Sikhs will switch over.

[batman]

The Workers' Party won't get that many. Not in Slough. It isn't like Birmingham Ladywood or Bradford West in terms of its demography. A lot of the Tory vote in the most recent local elections won't stick with the Tories in a general one. I really don't think Tan Dhesi is going to be run all that close at all although it's very unlikely to be one of Labour's strongest results either.

[Ports]

Jun 17, 2024 12:16:44 GMT batman said:

The Workers' Party won't get that many. Not in Slough.

To that end I think we should add that the fact that a candidate is running under the Workers Party of Britain banner is far likely to be less of a draw than many of the other hallmarks of a deposit-retaining independent campaign. It's the sort of thing that would be very much overstated by some election watchers. I do not know about the other independent candidates but they might be better connected or more well-known within their community.

In any case I agree with batman that it might be one of Labour's least remarkable results but I am quite positive of a comfortable hold with a majority of the vote. To the extent it matters, I think the erstwhile unpopularity of a local council is far more likely to be a factor where it becomes another attribute of the already unpopular Tories - like in Woking for example - than here.

[batman]

It can accentuate a swing when things are not going well for the party in question - for example the Tory gain of Walthamstow in the 1987 general election was clearly helped by the unpopularity of the rates-raising Labour council at that time, as I think was the swing to the Tories in Ealing North (the largest pro-Tory swing in the country in that election). But if the party is doing pretty well it's much harder for local factors of this kind to intrude all that much.

[Johncrane]

Jun 17, 2024 12:16:44 GMT batman said:

The Workers' Party won't get that many. Not in Slough. It isn't like Birmingham Ladywood or Bradford West in terms of its demography. A lot of the Tory vote in the most recent local elections won't stick with the Tories in a general one. I really don't think Tan Dhesi is going to be run all that close at all although it's very unlikely to be one of Labour's strongest results either.

While the workers party flopped here getting 2.6%, the Indy got a very respectable 25.5% of the vote. I wonder how things will play out at the next local elections given that a number of councillors left labour a while back