This by-election is getting very surreal. So much so, that I’m beginning to think that the Tories are running a fictional candidate. Yesterday, Andrew Gilligan, in a two page Evening Standard spread on the Conservative candidate wrote “[Tony] Lit does not live in Southall…preferring the leafier environs of the Chiswick-Isleworth border for himself and his young family”. There’s one small political problem with this. There is no Tony Lit registered to vote in Chiswick. I know he only joined the Conservatives last week but running a candidate who isn’t registered to vote strikes me as just peculiar.
Copyblogger theme design by Chris Pearson | Hosted by ENTANET
19 comments ↓
So Tony lit is actually: Surinderpal Singh Lit and he’s been voting in Ealing ever since the the tender age of 18 according to Ian Dale’s blogg, however for the purposes of the election he’s running (as a candidate) under his common name (which he can legally apparently do) whilst his family name (under which he’s been busily voting in Ealing) is a secret/not mentioned? how extraordinary… No doubt the voters of Ealing will understand, and relate to a candidate who has two different names he likes to use: the one he was born with and other one he runs for political office with.
Michael
Seen Iain Dale? Want to retract?
Could he be registered under the name Surinderpal Lit?
Oh dear.. when will this post be deleted?
[...] While this strikes me as all being a bit petty and childish, it is very amusing… Tom Watson, Labour blogger and MP, is running the Ealing Southall By-Election campaign for the Labour Party. Later on this evening, he’ll be forced to make a very humiliating apology for this blog entry. He wrote… There is no Tony Lit [the Conservative candidate] registered to vote in Chiswick. I know he only joined the Conservatives last week but running a candidate who isn’t registered to vote strikes me as just peculiar. [...]
So how many Surinderpal Singh Lit can you find ?
Same person, and by making this accusation you have broken electoral law.
So withdraw, or apologise. Or don’t New Liebour do either of these ?
ALan Douglas
I feel the magic phrase here may well be ‘Andrew Gilligan’…with this man’s track record in ‘research’, Lit is probably more likely to live on the Moon than in Chiswick.
So whens the apology coming out….
[...] July 4, 2007 at 11:22 pm · Filed under Uncategorized The Conservatives are having a bit of a tiff with Labour over whether or not Conservative candidte Tony Lit is on the electoral register. Labour’s naughty election organiser Tom Watson has suggested he isn’t. The Conservative blogger Iain Dale has pointed out, under his full family name he is. I’m not sure it’s going to swing my vote either way. [...]
When are you going to withdraw this incorrect and illegal slur?
You probably ought to publish a retraction … I understand that Tony Lit is registered under his full family name; the fact that he can stand under a reduced name is down to your Government’s change in the law of elections; and given that it is a criminal offence under those same laws to publish a false statement about a candidate, I suggest that you do it sharpish!
How do you respond to Iain Dale’s report: that the claim isn’t true?
have no comments really been made? – Are you going to put up all comments made or correct this entry? you need to make up your mind.
incidentally Tom – keen followers of the Lit family may recall that Tony’s father stood as an independent in the 2001 GE.
Avtar Lit was (and remains) Chairman of Sunrise Radio which was fined by the regulator for carrying an interview with Mr Lit
http://www.ofcom.org.uk/static/archive/rau/newsroom/news-release/01/pr073.htm
I do hope Tony Lit doesn’t make the same mistake – if so, some of us will be listening!
Iain Dale says you’re wrong about this, and that he’s registered under his full name in Chiswick-Isleworth. So whilst it’s factually correct to say “There is no Tony Lit registered to vote in Chiswick” you are, according to Dale, at best mis-leading the public when you say that the Tories are “running a candidate who isn’t registered to vote”. He’s expecting an apology, claiming that you’re in breach of electoral law by keeping this post up.
Tony Lit *is* registered. You might want to check out Iain Dale’s blog (and give your lawyer and quick ring too!)
Have you just libelled your opponent, and broken electoral law? I think we should be told.
[...] Tom Watson, Labour blogger and MP, is running the Ealing Southall By-Election campaign for the Labour Party. Later on this evening, he’ll be forced to make a very humiliating apology for this blog entry. He wrote… [...]
Well well well. Still no apology? A triumph Tom. There is no “Tony Lit” registered. That’s true. Why would anyone want to apologise for truthing?
(Apart from Michael Meacher and this geezer from Sarkozy’s govt).
Cameron ought to apologise for selecting a one-day Tory, with no family history of Toryism, flirting around in various namesakes, and with no discernible politics except “no one else would have me”.
[...] all started rather innocently. Tom Watson puts up a post with the simple question of who’s Tony Lit? Iain Dale jumps up and down like a big girls blouse with accusations that Tom has broken election [...]
Leave a Comment