Politics is banned in the town centre, which on balance is probably OK as it avoids the danger of a BNP takeover of this Englandfest. But it does disappoint a crowd of media people which has gathered in anticipation of Jack Straw and I on rival soapboxes. Maybe next Saturday.

Jack sets up his stall by the rotunda on the other side of the shopping centre. Some of my supporters get the Green Goddess into the multi-storey car park just above his head and start blasting out “Hit the Road Jack Straw”. I am down by Jack, doing a Channel 4 interview and, by an acoustic fluke, the sound seems to come from the ground all around us. Great consternation ensues; Labour party hacks bark into mobile phones, and two policemen come running.

The shopping centre security staff eventually find the Green Goddess, climb in and start ripping out the speaker equipment. Some argy-bargy with my team ensues, but eventually it all dusts down quietly.

I have mixed feelings about this kind of thing. A little bit is a good joke, but I don’t really approve of trying to drown someone out. On Sunday many of my team go off again to picket a Straw meeting at Jan’s conference centre. They enjoy the yelling and venting of fury. I tend to the view that Jack is entitled to run his campaign, but most of my people think he’s a war criminal and not entitled to anything but a small cell.

The media circus is getting overwhelming. I have done 11 interviews this morning. But we seem to be blacked by the BBC. On Monday the Ten O’Clock news carried a constituency profile on Blackburn which interviewed the three major party candidates but ignored me. The last mention I had on the BBC was Newsnight a fortnight ago, when Jeremy Paxman read out a highly tendentious statement from the FCO “correcting” a report on the circumstances in which I left my post – something I had not commented on in the first place.

Two days ago someone from Radio 2 called and rather tersely cancelled a Simon Mayo interview. Then Radio 5 Live called about a candidates’ debate from Blackburn tomorrow. I was now not to participate in the one-hour debate, but was offered an interview of up to five minutes beforehand. I declined.

The Newsnight “correction” had come from FCO civil servants. Clearly, the BBC has been under some pressure. I sent an email to Helen Boaden, head of BBC News and Current Affairs, and asked whether there had been a central decision to downgrade coverage of our campaign, or if these were all programme-producer decisions. I received a reply referring me to the public complaints department.

Meanwhile the campaign goes on. We have now delivered more than 60,000 leaflets to homes in Blackburn. I now feel strongly on one issue: I would support a refusal by postmen to deliver mail to postboxes two inches off the ground. Who on earth came up with that idea?

One further infringement of our liberties under New Labour, and a serious threat to free speech. Every candidate has the right to have an electoral communication delivered free of charge. These have to be pre-vetted by the Post Office for, inter alia, libel. Since when has the Post Office, as opposed to a court of law, been qualified to decide what a candidate may or may not say? I feel rather insulted it found nothing wrong with my electoral communication. I am obviously not being radical enough.

(Am I the only one to find this mantra insulting? I think I’ll rob a bank to get some campaign funds. When the police come to take me away, I’ll say, “Hey, let’s move on. OK, so I robbed a bank. Whatever the rights and wrongs, that phase is over. What is important is that we all come together now and get behind the really great things I’m going to do with the money.”)

Today, however, the campaign HQ is buzzing. Sixty-two local people have so far delivered leaflets for us, in many cases just to their own street. Last night nine volunteers from London were on spare beds and sofas, and 11 more are coming at the weekend. Last weekend, the flood of volunteers included Poles, Ghanaians, Swedes, Canadians and Kiwis.

The Green Goddess is about to go out on yet another mission with a leafleting crew. It is a great campaigning vehicle – a huge free mobile billboard with a big crew cab. It blasts out our campaign song, Hit the Road, Jack Straw by The Rub. The lyrics are really funky: “Yeah, shout out to Blackburn from the rest from the rest of the country/We’re hopin’ the people in that fine constituency/Can see the new world order ain’t no good for humanity./ So hit the road, Jack Straw, and don’t you come back no more, no more, no more, no more … ”

The campaign is not popular with everyone. One irate voter called me a middle-class hippy. I was pretty chuffed, having aspired to membership of both for years. I also had an argument with yet another council flunky. This one told me I couldn’t park the Goddess outside the town hall to campaign around the shopping centre. I pointed out that Jack Straw regularly does just that. The notion of democracy still seems difficult for some of the authorities here to grasp.

I did some canvassing around the gay bars which are centred, wonderfully, on Mincing Lane. An enthusiastic young man called Geoff told me I was “almost a gay icon, which is really impressive, seeing how you’re ugly”. Put that on my stone when I go: “Craig Murray. Middle-class hippy. Almost a gay icon.”

Robin Cook came to Blackburn to support Jack Straw this week, presumably in a desperate effort to get a place in Gordon Brown’s eventual cabinet. Deeply sad. Cook spoke to a strictly limited audience of around 60. The BBC were not admitted, but the Guardian were, up for the day alongside the Murdoch press for a piece on Jack. They accompanied him on a tour that featured carefully staged spontaneity. The everyday activity stumbled across included interracial street football. One local Asian, Vaz, told me he had not seen this in 30 years.

Massoud had let his Labour party membership lapse because of the war. The local party plainly didn’t notice, because he was rung and told to be shopping in Asda during Straw’s hack-accompanied walkabout. Perhaps that was what Labour offered Asda as an incentive to let them do it – extra shoppers on a Monday morning.

Next week we are anticipating an even stranger source of support for Jack. Local rumour has it that the Saudi ambassador, representative of that fine democracy with a great human rights record, is coming to Blackburn. He and Straw, it seems, will address a meeting of Muslims hosted by the Lancashire Council of Mosques, chairman one Ibrahim Masters, a major Labour party fixer in Blackburn. Announcements are expected of Saudi largesse for the community. Election interference? Perish the thought.

The man who called me a middle-class hippy gave me a note saying, “Don’t forget our dead troops.” I can’t. Much more poignantly, neither can Reg Keays or Rose Gentle. That’s why we are standing.

WILLIAM Gladstone’s statue stands just yards from the entrance to King George’s Hall, Blackburn.

The tribute to the 19th Century Prime Minister — who ensured everyone got a secret vote — overlooked the venue where ballots from a rigged council election were counted in 2001.

The irony is not lost on some of the candidates in next month’s polls.

Thanks to postal voting, some parties claim the transparency of Britain’s proud system is being corrupted.

Former Labour councillor Mohammed Hussain is now in prison for three years and seven months for the part he played in an election fraud in Blackburn in 2002.

He won Bastwell by a 600-plus majority but a police probe — triggered by complaints by the local Conservative Association — found more than 200 votes delivered to people in the post had been filled in on behalf of Hussain.

Such abuse has only been made possible since the Government relaxed rules on postal voting in 2001, allowing anyone to use the method instead of visiting a polling station. Previously, people had to have a legitimate reason, such as working abroad.

The Government’s postal voting experiments continued last year in the local and European elections, doing away with the ballot box entirely in East Lancashire for the first time.

“The thing to remember in 2004 is that everyone had a postal vote for two elections, we did checks and no problems were reported,” said Blackburn returning officer, Phil Watson. “In 2002, just a small percentage opted for the postal vote and while what happened was unacceptable, there is no proof it is rife in the system.”

Mr Watson, like returning officers across East Lancashire, is working to safeguard the system and is reluctant to discuss whether police will again accompany postmen once postal votes start to be sent out a week on Monday.

When a postal vote is delivered, it comes with a declaration form which must be signed by the voter and countersigned by a friend or relative. The completed ballot paper is then mailed back in a numbered envelope placed in another envelope.

When it arrives at the council, the ballot and declaration number is checked to ensure they match and are then split — protecting the secrecy of the ballot until polling day.

Declarations are checked for irregularities, such as large numbers countersigned by one person, with around 1,000 looked over in Blackburn at the last election.

Mr Watson said: “I am confident we will spot anything amiss but I can’t guarantee it will be fraud-free. There is a need for this election to be seen as watertight, though.”

In 2002, Hussain’s case was described as an ‘isolated one’ — but a probe is now under way over similar claims in Burnley and high court judge, Richard Mawrey, last week quashed the results of two elections in Birmingham after deciding there had been large-scale vote rigging.

Sitting in a special election court, he slammed the current system, pointing out that postal votes are easy to steal as they are sent in striking envelopes.

He said: “Short of writing ‘Steal me’ on the envelopes, it is hard to see what more could be done to ensure their coming into the wrong hands.”

And there is now a real danger of the postal voting row becoming political, too, with the Tories and Lib Dems pointing the finger at Labour.

But all three parties have been urged by the Association of Electoral Administrators and Electoral Reform Society to ensure members stay out of the postal voting system, putting an end to candidates offering to deliver completed votes for people.

Paul Browne, a Lib Dem from Darwen, said: “On polling day, I might drive people to vote at a polling station but I’ll have no idea how they voted.”

Home Secretary Charles Clarke has defended the system, as had Local Government Minister Nick Raynsford. And a spokesman for the Department for Constitutional Affairs said: “The voting system works, and works well.”

But Jack Straw disagreed: “What has been exposed is serious weaknesses in the system, which will have to be dealt with. If the electoral process is corrupted, everybody suffers.”

And Craig Murray, his independent Parliamentary rival, said: “People have come to me to say they are under pressure to get postal votes and hand them over. This shouldn’t be allowed to happen.