Blackburn is buzzing as the campaign reaches its climax. Volunteers and well-wishers continue to stream into our campaign office, and there’s every sign that an upset may be on the cards.

Craig Murray’s election address has finally been released by the Post Office, and delivered to every household in the constituency. His message is a simple one: You CAN beat Labour’s postal vote rigging.

An astonishing 16,000 postal votes have been requested in Blackburn alone, and there are widespread fears of fraud.

This isn’t just about the illegal war in Iraq, and the lies that were told to take us there – it’s about democracy itself. If you’d like to join the fight for the last hectic days of the campaign, do drop by our office on 15 Railway Road, Blackburn, or telephone us on 01254 695 919 / 07979 691085.

…please call Hugh urgently on 0043 676 522 3804!

In a desperate and highly controversial bid to avoid defeat in Blackburn, Foreign Secretary Jack Straw has enlisted the support of Iraq’s answer to John Prescott, Deputy Prime Minister Barham Salih.

Salih visited Blackburn last week to address a gathering of Labour activists at the Audley Community Centre. At a hustings meeting shortly afterwards, Jack Straw was asked why, with Iraq in turmoil, the country’s Deputy Prime Minister had been dragged over to Britain to intervene in our election.

The enlistment of Iraq’s Deputy PM for New Labour’s party-political purposes must also raise serious questions about the supposed independence of occupied Iraq.

National Public Radio(US)– Britain’s Straw Faces a Challenge over Iraq: Former British Ambassador to Uzbekistan Craig Murray is running against Foreign Secretary Jack Straw for Parliament. Murray was removed from his post in October after criticizing U.K. security services’ use of data obtained by torture by Uzbek forces. Murray is running on an anti-Iraq war platform, a subject both major parties have tried to ignore.

Click here for the link to the audio report

NB – The NPR report incorrectly states the circumstances of Craig Murray’s sacking; click here for a clear outline of those circumstances.

Tell Jack Straw To Hit The Road! National Demonstration Against Our Torture-Tainted Foreign Secretary – Blackburn – 2.30pm Saturday 30th April

Assemble at Bangor Street Community Centre, Whalley Range, Blackburn BB1 6NZ for a march on Jack’s Home Turf.

There will be speeches by Independent antiwar candidate Craig Murray and local community leaders.

Contact the Craig Murray Campaign on 01254 695 919 to find out more!

LATEST NEWS – FREE coach travel from Keighley, Bradford, Leeds and surrounding areas. BRADFORD – meet 10.30am outside Grove Library, Bradford College. KEIGHLEY – meet 12pm outside Medina Mosque, LEEDS – Call 07815 107351. Coaches are being provided from other major cities and towns ‘ If you are interested please e-mail [email protected] for more information.

BBC Online– Muslims to march over terror laws: Thousands of Muslims are set to march through London and Blackburn in protest at anti-terror legislation… The demonstrations have been organised by a number of organisations including Stop Political Terror and Islamic Human Rights Commission… Protesters up in Blackburn meanwhile will set off from Bangor Street at 1430 BST before moving into the city centre for a major demonstration against the area’s MP, Foreign Secretary Jack Straw.

***Call the Craig Murray Campaign on 07979 691085, or drop by our Blackburn office on 15 Railway Road to find out how you can help us Sack Jack!***

The Guardian– Our man in Blackburn: St George’s Day is a big thing in Blackburn. England flags sprout from all the shops, and there is a small fair in the town centre, with knights on horseback and a rather cuddly dragon getting slain. Red roses are distributed from a brewer’s dray. The Labour party in Blackburn is a rather more fearsome adversary. I noted with some amusement that the main road into town is the A666 – the number of the Beast. Let’s hope St George is a good omen.

The signs continue to look good. We held a meeting on Monday at the 120-capacity Daisyfields community centre. Three hundred people turned up, and we had to have speakers in a garden for the overflow. We had a webcast audience of more than 500, and two satellite channels were filming. I had so many lapel mic transmitters clipped to my belt that as I spoke my trousers kept falling down. I kept leaning with my hands in my pockets, hoping I looked casual as I struggled to get them back up. I got rapturous applause, so I might try to replicate the effect next time.

***Call the Craig Murray Campaign on 07979 691085, or drop by our Blackburn office on 15 Railway Road to find out how you can help us Sack Jack!***

Bloomberg – Blair, Straw Lose Support From U.K.’s Growing Muslim Population: Craig Murray, an independent candidate, has based his campaign on the war in Iraq. He decided to run in December after Straw fired him as ambassador to Uzbekistan for publicly criticizing Britain’s use of intelligence that he said the government knew Uzbeki security forces had obtained by torture. Murray, 46, says the Muslims of Blackburn — where many men have beards, gowns and cotton prayer caps, and women are veiled to the eyes — can have their say in Middle East affairs by getting rid of Straw. ”If Straw loses, it will be felt all the way to the White House,” he says, standing outside the Tawheed ul Islam mosque in a three-piece, navy pinstriped suit. He’s using his 315,000 pounds ($600,000) in early severance pay to fund his campaign, including a green fire engine named the ”Green Goddess,” which rolls around town blaring out a song called ”Hit the Road, Jack Straw.”

The Independent – The independent charge: A record number of independent candidates are standing at this general election, aiming to capitalise on growing disillusionment with party politics… Britain’s former ambassador in Uzbekistan is standing against Jack Straw, the Foreign Secretary, in the Blackburn constituency. Mr Murray was removed from his post after he accused the British Government of turning a blind eye to torture in Uzbekistan. The Foreign Office retaliated by accusing him of drunkenness and trading visas for sex with local women. Despite being cleared, the 45-year-old Scot was condemned for speaking out publicly. He is campaigning on Britain’s foreign policy, especially the war in Iraq and MI6’s alleged acceptance of intelligence obtained under torture.

The Scotsman – The mandarin who is out to ‘sack Jack’: Corruption. The word is everywhere in Blackburn politics: like many small towns where one party dominates, it’s a handy jibe for opponents to make. But here, there may be a little more substance to the slur. Earlier this year, Mohammed Hussain, a Labour councillor, was jailed for three years after a court found that at least 200 of the votes for him in the Bastwell ward were fraudulent. What gives Hussain’s case such deadly resonance is that the 200 votes were postal ballots. In the general election next month, at least 16,000 people will vote by post, up from around 4,000 in 2001. In a total electorate of 73,000, that has set nerves jangling. “We’re scared to death of vote-rigging, and postal votes are the biggest worry,” says Tony Melia, a local businessman fighting the seat for the Liberal Democrats. In Blackburn’s Asian community, rumours of fraud abound, tales of local shopkeepers collecting blank postal ballots and handing them to Labour members; family patriarchs and mosque elders simply confiscating voting forms and filling them in en masse for Labour… Lancashire Police haven’t ruled out sending officers to accompany postmen delivering ballot papers. Phil Watson, the town’s returning officer, said earlier this week: “I can’t guarantee it will be fraud-free.”

The Guardian – Murray. Middle class hippy. Almost a gay icon’: I could actually win this election. The realisation came as something of a shock. It was not really part of the original game plan. Two months ago I arrived here alone, standing forlornly with my rucksack on Blackburn railway station, in the midnight snow. I wanted to make a stand on principle against illegal war, and against Jack Straw’s decision that we should use intelligence obtained under torture. I wanted to get some national publicity for these issues during the campaign, to counter Tony Blair’s mantra: “Let’s move on” from the war.

‘ Craig Murray is standing against Jack Straw in the general election for the Blackburn seat. This column will appear in G2 every Thursday until the election. www.craigmurray.co.uk

click here to listen to Craig’s campaign song, “Hit The Road Jack Straw”

Click here to find out how you can help Craig beat Jack in Blackburn

The Financial Times – War Blair faces Muslim backlash over Iraq war: The Blackburn constituency of Jack Straw has taken on a totemic significance for an antiwar protest campaign, although local Labour strategists believe the foreign secretary will hold on to his near 10,000 majority, helped by Lord Ahmed, the Labour peer, leading Muslim supporters on his behalf.

The Guardian – War pitches Straw into survival battle: “He has done nothing good for Muslims,” says Abu Musa, who shoos Mr Straw away from his door. “He’s siphoned the vote off us for many years. As home secretary he introduced anti-terrorism laws which totally discriminated against Muslims and now as foreign secretary he is going around the world subjugating Muslim countries. “All he has done is abuse the power the Muslim community has given him.”

Lancashire Evening Telegraph – Keeping it clean: FOR returning officers across East Lancashire, one of the primary goals of next month’s national and county council elections is to restore faith in a process blighted by scandal in recent years. Chief Reporter DAVID HIGGERSON reports.

“And the fact it is taking place in a town where people thought so much of Gladstone, the man who ensured a secret vote, to buy a statue of him just shows how corrupt the Government has allowed the system to become.”

Click here for more news about election fraud in Blackburn.

To find out how you can help Craig Murray’s campaign follow this link.

Financial Times – Rising support unlikely to free fringe players from sidelines: Jack Straw, the foreign secretary, faces a challenge from Craig Murray, the former ambassador to Uzbekistan, suspended for speaking out about human rights abuses, who is standing for Respect in Blackburn.

NB – Craig is standing as an Independent candidate, and is not affiliated with any political party, although he welcomes the support he has had from Respect.

The Guardian – Our Man In Blackburn:I obviously haven’t got the hang of electoral politics yet. I keep meeting people and hoping they’re not going to vote for me. I was watching Jack Straw give one of his soap box orations outside Marks and Spencers when the man standing next to me turned and said ‘He’s talking rubbish, isn’t he’. I agreed, genuinely. ‘And you can tell he’s Jewish’ he added, ‘Look at his bloody nose.’

[NB – This is the unedited version of the piece that appeared in today’s Guardian]

If you can’t wait for the Green Goddess, click here to listen to Craig’s campaign song, “Hit The Road Jack Straw”

Click here to find out how you can help Craig beat Jack in Blackburn

The Guardian – Off with their heads: Alternatively, Muslim voters could make a point in Blackburn. Jack Straw was about 9,000 ahead in 2001, but this time he faces a Tory opponent in the shape of an anti-war Muslim, Imtiaz Ameen, and Craig Murray, the former ambassador to Uzbekistan, who cried foul over human rights abuses and was sacked by Straw for his pains. It’s a long shot, but the departure of the foreign secretary would surely count as 2005’s Portillo moment.

Could Jack Straw be the new Michael Portillo?

Sunday Times – Focus: Could the election be won by fraud? (by Robert Winnett and Abul Taher): This week Craig Murray, a former diplomat hoping to become the local MP, will be writing to the Electoral Commission to raise his fears of vote-rigging in the constituency. The soaring numbers of people voting by post, he said, are leaving the election wide open to fraud. “I’ve been approached by several people in the Asian community who are under huge pressure from Labour activists to apply for a postal vote rather than a ballot vote and then hand their postal vote over to the Labour party. That is happening now in Blackburn on a wide scale. In my career as a diplomat I’ve been used to precisely this situation abroad but wasn’t expecting to face it in the UK.” In Blackburn the contest is particularly tense. The sitting MP is Jack Straw, the foreign secretary, and the local Muslim community is threatening to vote him out in protest over the Iraq war. In its efforts to hang on to every vote it can, Labour is urging people to register for postal votes; already 50% more people than in 2001 will be using the system in Blackburn this time. Many of them, claimed Murray, are facing pressure or even threats of “repercussions” intended to influence who they support.

For the record, I think I should state that we don’t think these repercussions include being boiled alive.

The Guardian – Our man in Blackburn

Our campaign is pretty well on the move now, except for continuing telecom problems. It is 10 days since I applied to BT for landlines for our campaign HQ. They called yesterday to tell me an engineer will be available on April 7. I spent much of the day fuming hopelessly at various BT officials, but still no line.

I buy, at great expense, an Orange mobile office card to try to solve my internet problem in the meantime. Rather than wait for pages to download, it would be quicker to travel to the addresses of the websites and ask for a paper copy. I make more irate calls. Orange blames overload on the network, as opposed to its network being no good. It would function perfectly if nobody used it.

We had a minor drama on Maundy Thursday. Our campaign HQ used to be the borough council’s information office. They moved out in November, leaving their sign above the premises. It had grown very mucky, but was still legible. The windows are now full of anti-war and anti-Straw posters. The council woke up to this matter the day before the Easter break.

Two officials stood outside looking important and making calls on their mobile phones. Then they asked me to take the sign down, to which I replied: “It’s your sign.”

An Ealing comedy ensued with lots of people arriving, looking at the sign, and speaking to me. A man from Capita told me that the council had instructed them that the sign must be down that day, before the Easter holiday. After the flood of officials, two painters arrived, having been pulled off work on housing. They proceeded to take down the sign, and I made them a cup of tea. They promised to vote for me.

Capita is an interesting privatised body. It seems to do public works less efficiently than the government used to, and with the senior management getting paid huge amounts of cash – so much that Capita’s chief executive is sponsoring a city academy for Blackburn.

This is the government’s wonderful new scheme. If you put in less than 10% of the capital cost of the new school, you can have it named after you, and you get a big say in choosing the staff and the curriculum. In the north-east these schools are actually teaching creationism – which, of course, pleases the spooky-eyed religious types on the Blair/Bush axis. Goodness knows what the one in Blackburn will teach. That the Iraq war was legal?

Blackburn is getting a new hospital under the private finance initiative. It seems to me incredible that it can be argued that providing a cash return on capital to the private sector works out cheaper than not doing so. In practice, the result in Blackburn as elsewhere is that the levels of service and facility provision continually dwindle as the project progresses. Can anyone explain to me why we could find ?4bn at the drop of a hat for the war in Iraq, but not public money for a hospital in Blackburn?

The campaign slog continues. On Monday my girlfriend and I leafletted 1,300 houses between us. My pedometer registered 27 miles, much of it up and down steps. Not wanting to ruin good shoes, I bought a pair in Vienna last month for ?20. They are made of good leather, but have a most unfortunate two-tone effect. A family member told me they make me look like a Russian pimp. I had seen that danger, but rather hoped the effect might be confined to my feet. I can imagine Silvio Berlusconi saying that at a cabinet meeting: “Bring me the feet of that Russian pimp.”

There is a real flaw in our democracy, with the odds heavily stacked against independent candidates. On the ballot paper, thanks to a wonderful bit of New Labour Orwellianism, you can no longer choose how to describe yourself. A description such as “Save Kidderminster Hospital” or “No to George Bush” would remind voters of what you stand for. But now you are allowed only to enter the name of a registered political party or the word “Independent”.

In each constituency there are strict limits on what you can spend, but no limit on what the parties can spend nationally. So Blackburn hoardings are all plastered with Labour party advertising, which doesn’t count against Jack Straw’s limit, but any I put up will count against mine. On top of which, flyposting has been made a specific offence. Well, I think civil disobedience in the name of democracy is called for here. I am off to flypost Blackburn’s many boarded-up buildings.

www.craigmurray.co.uk

The second entry from Craig Murray’s campaign diary is published in today’s Guardian.

The sun is shining in Blackburn and spirits are light. Well, mine are. I am sitting in my new campaign headquarters. My assistants are Peter Newton and Eddie Duxbury, two pensioners. Pete is cleaning the windows and Eddie is setting up the computers and telephones. I managed to rent a shop in a perfect town-centre position, just down from the railway centre.

Campaigning is going well. I am enjoying my encounters with the voters, who are given to speaking their minds. I have met with no hostility. I have been invited for cups of tea by total strangers. One thing that has surprised me when I have gone leafletting is that it is not unusual for people to leave their front doors ajar. On some streets, children run about and play football in the road as I did as a child. These are things London has lost.

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