"Rightful owners"?!?!

Until today I had never really heard of Murad Qureshi. Apparently he is a Labour list member of the London Assembly, that oh so important body to our lives here in London. And nor had I much reason to blog about the recent by-election in Church Street Ward in the City of Westminster. But a piece on Labourhome caught my eye: Turnout and ethnicity in the Church Street by-election.

Now claiming the result is all down to voters "voting ethnic" and ignoring the fact that the Conservatives have been doing a lot to tackle our traditional poor polling amongst various communities (as this commenter points out) is dubious in itself. But it's this comment that stands out the most:

As always we will need to consider carefully the implications of the loss of Church Street and work with the whole community to ensure that when we go back to the ballot for the ward in 2010, it will have a much higher turnout and return it to its rightful owners.

"Its rightful owners"?!?! This is so endemic of the attitude of some in Labour. They seem to think they have an inherent right to the votes of particular areas and communities.

No the "rightful owners" of Church Street ward are the voters of Church Street.

I think the commenters "AngyVoter" puts it best:

To simply say it's all the Bangladeshis fault really is pointless and just shows the mentality of some of the more "public" members of the Labour Party.

"The Ethnic Vote belongs to us"

Disgusting.

Such an attitude is disgraceful. And this doesn't come from a random Labour Party member but one of their main Assembly Members, elected in second place on the list.