Tag Archives: adeela shafi

#KerryOut phone canvassing falls short of target

The Bristol East phone canvassing drive forming a main pillar of the discredited #KerryOut campaign reached an embarassing end on Sunday, achieving only a tiny fraction of its own target. After more than ten weeks of “activity” the totaliser on MyConservatives.com stood static at just 8% late last week, failing to make any significant progress before all traces of the failed initiative were expunged from public view:

As a supposed symbol of the party’s modernisation, Adeela Shafi found herself introducing David Cameron at the Conservatives’ 2008 conference in Birmingham. But it was being thrust onto the blogosphere as the figurehead of a Tory attack campaign that elevated her profile to the point where her parlous financial affairs piqued the interest of a national newspaper. Shafi’s absence from the list of leading Muslim candidates name checked by David Cameron in a recent speech is poignant to say the least.

Look, everyone! It’s the irony train! Choo, choo!

Shafi is shafted as Tories squirm with lame "rebuttal"

Less than a month after it was launched with much fanfare, Tory agitation in the distinctly non target seat of Bristol East has backfired massively, with their poor PPC to having the salient details of her financial history picked up by a national newspaper and then exploding all over the blogosphere and Twitter in the most gruesome way possible.

Deep down, Tory Bear knows that throwing around phrases like “shoddy” and “Labour machine” while reprinting eleven paragraphs of Tory boy lawyer-speak does not a rebuttal make. The lame defence rests on the semantics of the terminology used by the Registry Trust, who are the custodians of CCJ records, that ”unsatisfied is not the same as unpaid”. Let’s ask the Trust, shall we?

And once more, with feeling (and underlining)!

“CCJs are shown as either satisfied or unsatisfied on the register. Satisfied means you’ve paid – unsatisfied mean you haven’t” – Registry Trust

If it’s been paid off then Shafi can inform the Trust, who will update the public record.

Sadly CCHQ’s “no comment” response does not inspire confidence.

Adeela can't go on like this!

Ladies and gentlemen, the poster that keeps giving and giving (click to enlarge):

From “rising star” to punchline quicker than you can say #kerryout

Huge debts of Tory candidate leave voters with prospect of disqualified MP

One of the Tories’ star PPCs has been reported as having defaulted on ‘debts’ of nearly £325,000. The Mirror reveals that Bristol East candidate Adeela Shafi, who was hand picked by Cameron to open for him at Conservative conference in 2008, has ”has had three county court judgments against her since 2007″.

The Insolvency Act 1986 and Enterprise Act 2002 outlaw undischarged bankrupts from standing for Westminster and provide for bankrupt MPs to be turfed out. Application for a bankruptcy petition by creditors (her husband was declared insolvent in 2000) could leave the Tories without a candidate or, should Shafi pull off a shock win in Bristol East, a Member of Parliament. Scrapbook doubts this is the kind of gamble voters will plump for on May 6.

The bombshell leaves Shafi open to allegations of recklessness from fellow Tories and recalls the recent case of the SNP’s original candidate in the Glasgow North East by-election, who was forced to stand down within five days of selection after failing to declare serious financial problems.

This is the kind of campaign development that party staffers dread and the stuff of absolute nightmares for election agents. What’s that sound?

The wheels coming off one of the Tories’ most visible campaigns.

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