Colville contenders chosen

Carol Caruana has worked so hard and loves the Colville area. I hope the voters will reward her.

Amir grew up in Colville and wants to keep it a lively area with shops and services for local residents. He will work hard on the Council to keep down rents for tenants and small businesses and to stop the chainstores taking over Portobello.

Vote for Amir on 22 July!

COLVILLE BY-ELECTION. Carol Caruana has been campaigning in Colville for years, not just for the four weeks of this by-election campaign. She has a track record of getting things done. People all over the Colville area have been helped by this great neighbourhood campaigner.

She has campaigned to protect the midweek market and promote our local shops. She is challenging the Council over plans to sacrifice the community swimming pool in order to build the new secondary school she has been calling for.

Carol has helped people with subjects ranging from housing to litter problems, and she does this all year round, not just at election times. She's a natural campaigner.

Speaking as someone who knows her and sees how hard she works, I can say with all confidence that Carol utterly deserves to win the by-election on Wednesday 22nd. Colville couldn't ask for a better, more genuinely local representative.

DECADES OF COLVILLE LABOUR COUNCILLORS have cleared out hundreds of crack dens, prostitutes and thieves who robbed residents & visitors to Colville & Portobello Road. We spent 5 years with the market traders committee agreeing the £750K waste compensation deal.We worked to save the Electric Cinema, The Tabernacle twice, Ainsworth & Maxilla Nurseries, Colville Nursery, & Thomas Jones Primary School. We re-opened the Woolworth's building on 26th June after stopping an earlier regeneration plan the Lib Dems tried to take credit for. With Tony Benn, we fought the 2004 Westbourne Grove Post Office closure. We've taken up dog mess, dangerous dogs, Carnival and many issues.
We stopped the Council building luxury flats on Meanwhile Gardens and have stopped plans to demolish Portobello Court, Wornington Green and other estates. After a 10 year Labour campaign, the Council will now build a Secondary School in North Kensington. And our 20 year environmental campaign has moved the Council from denial to acceptance of climate change, and air quality, cycle facilities, new green spaces and a plethora of all things green has been the result. It's all on record in the Council minutes and documents elsewhere.
The Lib Dems are good at making promises and taking credit for the work of Labour councillors in Colville, but they don't actually make anything real happen themselves. So people should vote for Amir Akhrif in the Wednesday 22nd July Colville By-election. He is born and bred in Colville and part of the Labour team that really has done the work and delivered for Portobello and the people of Colville.

LIB DEM CAROL CARUANA'S SUPPORT IS SURGING IN PORTOBELLO AS POLLING DAY APPROACHES.

I see Carol on the doorsteps and her support in Portobello is surging.

I think it's because she's been working hard in the Portobello area on really grass-roots community issues for years, and she's not even elected yet. She'd make a teriffic local councillor.

She genuinely does work all year round. She goes round to see residents all the time, listens to what matters to them and then tries to do something about the things people care about. She knows the area extremely well and she speaks for people of all backgrounds and income groups. She doesn't share the complacent Labour view of "our type of people" - she sees herself as part of a vibrant community and wants to represent it all.

No-one had ever heard of any of the other candidates in this election until last month. They all came from nowhere, picked by their parties. I can't find a record of a single campaign they have personally been involved with, let alone led. That's pretty extraordinary.

Carol is different. She stood last time 2006 and she's the only one who stuck with it.

I don't believe that Labour doesn't care about Colville, but I think they've been there for so long they've forgotten what it's like to be the ordinary citizen trying to make things better. They're so used to being there that they don't have the political will to stand up and be an effective opposition, a voice for the people in Portobello. That's what's really needed and that's why people see Carol as a breath of fresh air. She cuts through the mumbo jumbo and tells it like it is. She identifies an issue, campaigns on it in the community and makes sure the public know about it rather than keeping things behind closed doors.

A classic example is that Labour councillors in Colville actually waved through outrageous new plans to sell part of Colville Primary School to a private school, thus depriving the pupils of valuable play space. Carol Caruana would have asked for it to undergo scrutiny.

It's the utter contempt for transparency and openness that people are so tired of. It happens all over the Borough - the other two parties are oddly united on it. In Labour's case, I think it comes more out of complacency than anything else. And on Wednesday, I hope that complacency is going to come to an end.

Robin that is remarkable you appear to have cut and pasted a Lib Dem leaflet direct into this comment section right down to using the same Lib Dem phrases that appear in leaflets across the country trying to imply that only your party is 'local' and only your party 'cares' about people. You can't get more local that Amir Akrif he went to Colville School and has lived in the ward his whole life he has been involved in loads of campaigns the defence of Meanwhile Gardens being just one. He would make a fantastic councillor who will work with the rest of the Labour group to provide vocal and effective opposition to the Tories and represent the interests of all Colville residents. Vote Amir on Wednesday.

AMIR AKHRIF, COLVILLE'S LOCAL LABOUR CANDIDATE, has the buzz of success around Colville & Portobello amongst the 40+ nationalities, the young and the older who live there. Amir has been involved in a series of local campaigns in his own right, and working for Karen Buck MP. He sits on many local neighbourhood bodies (where are the Lib Dems?), he helped get rid of the BNP from All Saints Road when they attacked Daddy Vgo in 2005 (where the LDs?), he helped to re-open the Woolworths building (the LDs refused the offer of a meeting with the landlords to discuss their concerns). Amir joined the protest outside the Town Hall on 7th February against the Conservatives inviting the Israeli Ambassador to the Town Hall when Gaza was being bombed, and the relatives of borough residents killed (the LDs were not there).
Where were they when we campaigned with the postal workers union to defeat part-privatisation of the Post Office? Where were they when we stopped the Council removing plant pots & shrubbery from Mews & estates in Colville? Where were the LDs when we stopped the Council threatening hundreds of market traders with removal under safety rules? Where were the Lib Dems when we stopped the Council privatising the market? Selling off Council-owned shops? Where were the LDs when drug dealers threatened us with harm & death for kicking them off our streets & estates?
The language of the Conservatives & Lib Dems is much the same - change, change, change, its just a buzz word to them to try to fool the electorate. The last Lib Dem councillor achieved absolutely nothing on the Council. Don't be fooled, people of Colville. It was not the Lib Dems or Tories who worked hard to root out racism, crime, anti social behaviour, set up youth projects, law centres and smash the Rachmanite landlords, campaign against the north-south divide. It was Labour campaigners like the late Bob Pope, Ben Bousquet and now Amir Akhrif who did that.
DON'T BE FOOLED - AMIR AKHRIF IS ONE YOU, HE IS A SON OF COLVILLE, HE CARRIES ITS HISTORY IN HIS HEART, HE WILL NEVER LET YOU DOWN. REMEMBER THIS ON WEDNESDAY 22ND JULY WHEN YOU GO OUT TO VOTE.

Pat, it's hardly news that the Lib Dems have never been in power in Colville - that's the whole point. We have new ideas, a different approach. Colville is not being treated properly, and it's happening on Labour's watch. Time to let the voters see if we can do better at standing up for the area.

Anonymous - don't be anonymous. Anyone who has ever met Carol on the doorstep, as hundreds upon hundreds of people have, know that she is 100% authentic, not a 'copy and paste' job. I don't need to scour our own leaflets to think of nice things to say about Carol - I just like her!

She'd be a teriffic local councillor. Carol's the real deal, a proper local, not a career politican, passionate about her area, eager to do more. I'm proud to know her.

Robin, the Lib Dems and Tories either have a problem with the English language or you don't know what's been going on in Colville over the past 30+ years. And you don't have to be in office to get results. Many Labour activists campaigned on the Poll Tax, (that we crushed in North Ken), Housing, drugs, crime & for youth services etc 10 years before they got to office. Labour has a long, proud and active record in Colville and across North Kensington bringing huge, real and lasting benefits to residents quality of life there. The evidence is undeniable unless you are a Lib Dem who can go back only a few years in time.
You repeat that the LDs will bring "new ideas, a different approach" and "change" but this is what you (and the Tories) say on leaflets in every election across the country. It's just so much tosh, a set of buzz words to try to fool people who will be sorely disappointed to discover that the LDs are only a set of news sheets taking credit for Labour councillors work, or you have campaigned and failed to get a result, like on the Woolworths building that Labour saved, for example.
Despite all your lavish claims, the Lib Dems have achieved absolutely nothing of value for shops, market traders or residents in Colville & Portobello. Like David Cameron, the LDs have ponced around Portobello Road pretending to be doing something useful, but your No 1 objective is your own promotion. AMIR AKHRIF, Colville's local Labour candidate on Wednesday 22nd July, who works for Karen Buck MP on a range of local & national tpoics, and works with several Colville community groups & campaigns, BELIEVES IN ACTIONS, NOT WORDS. He was born, raised and educated in Colville and still lives there, and if elected,Amir will, as Tony Benn believes, deliver for all of the people of Portobello and Colville.
DON'T BE FOOLED BY THE LIB DEMS, PEOPLE OF COLVILLE. THEY HAVE LITTLE TO OFFER YOU EXCEPT A SLICK CAMERON-TYPE CAMPAIGN. IF YOU VOTE FOR THEM, YOU WILL SPLIT THE VOTE BETWEEN THEM, THE GREENS AND lABOUR, AND GET A TORY COUNCILLOR. AND YOU KNOW HOW MUCH HELP YOU WILL GET FROM THE TORIES! ONLY AMIR AKHRIF CAN STOP THE TORIES AND CONTINUE TO DELIVER THE GOODS INSTEAD OF THE EMPTY PROMISES OF THE LIB DEMS & TORIES.

The Tories are in third place here and have never come close to winning so that comment makes no sense whatsoever.

The most similar to a local election contest took place in 2008 with the London Mayoral and London Assembly Member elections. The Conservatives came first, Labour second & the Lib Dems third. This was repeated in the 2009 European Parliament Elections.

So the Tories are no longer in third place in Colville Ward, and they expect to win the Colville by-election on Wednesday 22nd July with the help of the Lib Dems. In these days of the Cameron upsurge, they expect their strengthened vote to hold up while their opposition vote splits allowing them to go ahead. Tory voters will not vote Lib Dem as the LDs have been desperately claiming. Because even they can see that the local LDs are litterly a paper party doing nothing themselves, but taking credit for the work of Labour councillors as well running a campaign of dirty stories that will come back and bite you. And like Robin, I detest the people who talk about transparency, who want to have their say but are afraid to come out of the shadows.

What a load of Rubbish.

Carol has done absolotley nothing except stuff boring leaflets through letter boxes. Claiming victory over things she has had no control.

Curious the way we have a Conservative council - always have had - but Labour and Lib-Dems each claim sole credit for everything we have done to improve the Colville neighborhood in in particular and North Kensington in general.

Barry

Curious the way we have a Conservative council - always have had - but Labour and Lib-Dems each claim sole credit for everything we have done to improve the Colville neighborhood in in particular and North Kensington in general.

Barry

What a fantastic victory for Carol tonight, and entirely deserved. Thanks so very much to everyone in Colville who supported her.

Well, it seems to me that Colville people have chosen the one they want to represent them.

Can't you bad-tempered politicians stop sniping and accept that? So what if you're Tories or Labour, and you get to bang on about yourselves in the local papers.

Good luck to Carol C and let's hope you can grow up and get real. Not everyone's a party politician, you know.

Yes, Jan, I agree. It does seem that local & national politicians are always sniping away. But politics is inevitably about parties putting forward different & competing programmes to the electorate. The election we just had in Colville was a by-election to fill the vacancy left by the resignation of one of the 3 Colville Labour councillors. Local Labour suffered a protest vote against us for the sins of the government. But we will soon recover this loss. There are still 2 Labour councillors representing Colville Ward.
We will now see if the Lib Dems can convert the extravagant promises they made to get elected into reality.

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