Sunday, November 11, 2007

Labour minister accuses constituent of being a liar?

It would appear that the minister, Sadiq Khan has found himself in a bit of trouble after using Parliamentary pre-paid stationary to send out unsolicited mail to his constituents. According to the Sunday Telegraph, an 18 year-old constituent in Wandsworth, Lucy Sweetland, received a survey soliciting views on the MP's performance. The Parliamentary rules state that,
"Pre-paid envelopes are designed to enable you to reply to letters received and to write to individuals and organisations in pursuit of your parliamentary business.... They should not be used to send mail to people on issues on which they have not previously contacted you."
Apparently the letter opened by saying "you and I have been in touch before", but the recipient told the Sunday Telegraph,
"I have never contacted Mr Khan or the Labour Party. I don't know why he said that. It seems a bit bizarre. I don't know how he got my address - it must have been off the electoral roll."
The minister says that he has not broken the rules and that Miss Sweetland must have contacted him at some point. So he's calling her a liar basically.

Now, I may be wrong on this, but I wonder how long it will be before someone in the Labour Party manages to find that there is some way that the girl can be tenuously linked to the Conservative Party and uses that to imply she cannot be trusted?

2 comments:

Shug Niggurath said...

That's ridiculous.

But you're right, they'll have her as an enemy from now. Just like everyone else who's comlained.

I think people should take this stuff to the left wing blogworld and see what they make of it. I suppose they hate sleaze when it's blue.

Anonymous said...

I had a similar unsolicited letter from Stephen Hesford (Wirral West)nine years ago. Admittidly I had written to the local newspaper opining basically he was a useless t***** (and I was Conservative Constituency Chairman at the time so it was part of the job description which I accepted with enthusiasm).

Complaints to the Sergeant at Arms got nowhere.

I still get unsolicited letters adressed top me at my business in which he is telling me what a wonderful job he and nulab are doing for business citing more rights for maternity and paternity leave and increase in the minimum wage etc. I dread to think what will be in it when he tells us bad news for business. I've never communicated with him in my life and never will and I still think he's useless.

Europe is welcome to him