Ken Livingstone's supporters accused of 'harvesting' postal ballot papers

Ken Livingstone is going through the motions. It is a wet Tuesday in the middle of the London mayoral election campaign. 
Labour’s candidate seems semi-detached as he makes an after-lunch speech to a Westminster audience. He mumbles briefly about his manifesto policies and then moves to ancient history: his battles with Margaret Thatcher, his squabbles with Tony Blair. At one point he even talks about Clement Attlee. 
Is age preying on Ken Livingstone’s mind? 
Is the old newt-fancier succumbing to his pond years and becoming stagnant? 
He was, after all, born in June 1945 — a month before Attlee won power. He has been a figure in frontline British politics since 1981. 
He insists to his lunchtime audience in Westminster that he is in prime physical condition and feels like a man of 40. 
When he last went for a medical check his doctor ‘almost had an orgasm’ to discover such a fit patient. Ew. But Mr Livingstone has always had a colourful turn of phrase. It is perhaps why he and Princess Anne get on well, as they do.
He grumbles that the ‘bloody’ media always reports how old he is. 
He challenges his election rivals to press-up competitions. He complains that politics was much better in ‘the good old days when everyone was ugly’. No one asks him about policy these days, he complains.
Lo and behold, a reporter from the Left-wing Tribune magazine pipes up with a nerdy question about the fire brigade. Candidate Livingstone, sotto voce, mutters: ‘Gawd, I need a drink.’ 
A second — or is it a third? — glass of Aussie Stickleback cabernet sauvignon sloshes into his glass. Red, Ken?
Mid-April should be the molten core of the London mayoral election but the Livingstone campaign is backfiring and pinking like a motorised Delhi rickshaw. First, there was the row about his tax returns. 
Although a socialist who espouses the redistribution of wealth, he has been avoiding tax by clever (legal) methods, on the advice of an accountant from the back streets of Brighton. 
Then there have been controversial remarks about gays. He said that the Tory party was ‘riddled’ with them. He said Jews were too rich to support him. On the gay thing, he claimed it was intended humorously.


One voter, Fatima Begum, who lives in the ward, said: "People working for Gulam Robbani came and collected my husband's postal vote."
A second voter int Brune House, Husneara Khanam, said that Mr Robbani's workers had collected her and her husband's vote.
A third resident took a picture of one of Mr Rahman's councillors, Aminur Khan, holding a sheaf of papers which the resident said were ballot papers. Mr Khan categorically denied last night that he had been involved in collecting any ballot papers.
There is also evidence of apparent "ghost voting" at the block with as many as eight voters - all with postal votes - registered in some flats.
The Electoral Commission's code of conduct on postal votes says that party activists "should not touch or handle anyone else's ballot paper" and "it is absolutely clear that anyone acting on behalf of a party should not solicit the collection of any ballot paper".
Mr Rahman has strongly supported Mr Livingstone's mayoral campaign, making a joint appearance with him last year, saying that "Ken cares" and calling an election broadcast which left Mr Livingstone in tears "brilliant". Mr Robbani's leaflets in the byelection endorsed Mr Livingstone as the "people's mayor."
There is no suggestion that his campaign or the Labour Party knew of the apparent vote-harvesting. Mr Robbani was not available for comment.
Spitalfields saw enormous swings towards Mr Livingstone at the last mayoral election. His vote share in the ward went up from 29.6 per cent in 2004, an election he won in London as a whole, to 68.4 per cent in 2008, an election he lost.

The total number of voters in London has risen by 6 per cent since 2008. However, six London boroughs have seen striking rises. Tower Hamlets, Haringey, Hackney and Islington, all with rises of between 10 and 14 per cent, are Labour-controlled. Hammersmith and Fulham, which rose by 14 per cent, is Conservative-held. Sutton, whose electorate rose by 21 per cent is Lib Dem.
Some of the rises, particularly in Sutton, may be explained by new development but of the six, Tower Hamlets is the only one where there has also been a significant rise in the proportion of the electorate with a postal vote.