Monday, August 23, 2010

Jinxed Labour Mayoral Candidate Oona King and the mystery of how she sending targeted emails to Labour members, how she get full access?















Dear All

Data Protection and its abuse seem to go hand in hand with the Labour Party.

Recently the case of Labour MSP Karen Whitefield obtaining children’s data from schools without parental consent was in the news.

She obtained data which she had no legal right to receive and used it for a private purpose, writing personal letters to named individuals.

This was wrong.

I thought I would look about to see what else the Labour Party was up to regarding data protection and came across the strange case of Oona King, a former MP who was beaten by George Galloway.

She now wants to be the Labour Candidate for the London Mayoral election.

Her campaign by all accounts is a series of gaffes on top of gaffes, not the stuff of people’s champion by any means.

So, struggling to climb ‘Mount Livingstone’, it is alleged that her campaign team campaign has access to London Labour party membership details beyond those given to the candidates by the Labour party.

The Labour mob has decided that the Mayoral candidates are entitled to five emails to party members which are sent out by the party to those London members whose emails are held by the party.

These are London-wide emails only, not broken down by CLP or borough or any other segment of the party.

If a candidate was to send an email there is a process they have to go through but it is emerging that Oona King’s campaign been operating on the basis of membership data not available to both candidates.

So, how did her team acquire additional access?

It seems that targeted emails have gone to women members of the party inviting them to an Oona King event in Westminster on September 3rd, chaired by Guardian journalist Polly Toynbee.

Even women who have not signed up to Oona King’s mailing list are getting invites.

Have people in the Labour Party passed on their membership lists to her?

If not, how does her team have the information?

Here are four possibilities;

1/ someone in the party machinery gave her or her team the London Labour party membership data.
2/ Oona King’s campaign obtained membership lists of the CLPs concerned by officers or local members.
3/ A London-wide list given to Oona King’s campaign by party bodies or individuals entitled to hold them and authorised like London’s two Labour MEPs.
4/ A former party member passed on the list.

Everything points to Oona King and her team having a London-wide Labour party membership list given the nature of the targeted emails.

One of the highlights of the 2005 Westminster election was Oona King being beaten by George Galloway; it was a particularly dirty campaign from all reports.

I think that the Labour selection fight for the London Mayoral selection is shaping up to be something similar.

And Oona King is no stranger to paying out court costs and money to other people who she has made unfounded allegations against.

Dirty fight ahead, Ken Livingstone better watch out.

Oona King isn’t a serious contender, only Livingstone has the kudos and track record to defeat Boris Johnson.

Yours sincerely

George Laird
The Campaign for Human Rights at Glasgow University

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