.... The shadow justice secretary, Sadiq Khan, was told by police that he could not leave for his own safety.
By the middle of the next morning, almost 36 hours after voting closed, Mr Miah’s count had finished. He was top in his ward with 2,270 votes, 149 more than his nearest Rahman-supporting rival. But then things started to go wrong.
“The returning officer was about to announce the result,” said Mr Miah. “Then the mayor in person came down and said you must recount.”
.... His strategy and delivery adviser, Kazim Zaidi, said that if the result was not accepted, “civil war” would “spill out on to the streets”.
In the next few weeks, after its investigation is complete, the Government must decide whether it continues to look on, as a borough at the heart of London, in other ways an improving place, declines into a political slum. [The Telegraph] Read more
