Thursday 3 March 2022

Is Brent Council promoting candidates ahead of the local elections?

As predicted Labour candidates are promoting themselves on social media ahead of the May 5th Council Elections, nothing wrong with that although it can get rather boring - 0ne repaired pot hole too many!  I predicted lots of councillors  tweeting themselves standing next to the pre-election community skips  and this duly happened.

But it becomes more of a grey area when the official Brent Council Twitter account tags councillor's private Twitter accounts in their tweets:

 





Councillor Krupa Sheth (@kkrupas) who is transferring to Tokyngton ward to stand alongside Cllr Muhammed Butt, leader of Brent Council, seems particularly favoured.

But this is not all.  Paul Lorber has called Brent Council's CEO, Carolyn Downs' attention to a leaflet being distributed in Sudbury where an unelected candidate is described as 'Your local representative':


Of course it is those skips again!

Lorber wrote: 

Just wondering what else Brent Council will be doing to assist the Labour Party re-election in Brent just 2 months before polling day? 

I see that they are promoting one of their as yet unelected individuals “as your local “Labour representative”. 

Is Brent Council bothering to send letters to residents directly or was the expectation that Labour candidates would be allowed to take advantage of this? Doing these kind of things just before an election is the oldest trick in the Labour book and I am amazed that Brent Council Officers fell for it and allowed it to happen.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Blimey, the Sudbury one is pushing things a bit, but Butt and Co don't care and Cllr Stephens has obviously let his ego exceed his expertise yes again

Trevor said...

Well, I actually got a leaflet from the Conservative candidate in January.
No surprise to know that the key focus was upon crime and the poor state of pavements and roads in Wembley.
I couldn't help but chuckle at the idea of voting for the Tory candidate who among other things, promises to : “fix the broken pavements, clean up the environment, and help to make Brent a safer place to live and work.”

Philip Grant said...

FOR INFORMATION:

This is a copy of an email I have sent today to Brent's Chief Executive, headed "Misuse of Brent Council social media for party political purposes":

'Dear Ms Downs,

I am writing to you, in your roles as both Brent's Chief Executive and Returning Officer for the upcoming local Council elections.

I am aware of concerns raised recently about the use of Brent Council's official Twitter account to promote Labour Cabinet members, through photographs showing them in "tweets" giving positive stories about Brent Council services, and by "tagging" to their personal Twitter accounts. This online article provides some examples:
https://wembleymatters.blogspot.com/2022/03/is-brent-council-promoting-candidates.html

I am not on Twitter myself, but yesterday a Brent Council official Instagram post was "recommended" to me, as I follow Brent Culture Service from my private Instagram account.

The Instagram post was about banner advertisements against litter dropping, on lamp posts in Ealing Road, near Alperton Station. The colourful banners had been designed by students at Alperton Community School, and the photograph quite rightly showed a group of students and their teacher, standing in front of one of these banner advertisements.

However, also appearing in the group photograph were Cllr. Muhammed Butt and Cllr. Krupa Sheth. There is no reason why they were necessary to publicise this latest Brent Council "success", but it appears that Brent Council's official social media is giving them plenty of photo opportunities recently - even more than usual!

This incessant promotion of Labour councillors (albeit members of Brent's Cabinet) is wrong, especially close to Council elections, and I hope that it will be stopped immediately. It gives unfair publicity to one political party.

It is particularly concerning that the Instagram post "recommended" to me concerned Alperton Ward. As you will be aware, this is a Ward where Labour lost a seat to the LibDems in a by-election two years ago, and the seats there are likely to be closely contested on 5 May.

For Brent Council's official social media to promote representatives of the Labour Party in that Ward, at this time, could be seen as giving that party an officially sanctioned political advantage, undermining local democracy. I am copying this email to Cllr. Anton Georgiou, the LibDem councillor for that Ward, for his information.

I look forward to hearing that you have instructed Brent's Communications Team to stop using any photographs which include councillors (even if they are also members of the Cabinet) until after the elections on 5 May. Thank you. Best wishes,

Philip Grant.'