Blackburn's 'Mafia' helped Jack Straw win Blackburn?

http://theinsider.org/mailing/article.asp?id=1157

Blackburn is the constituency of Foreign Secretary, Jack Straw, who is of Jewish origin.

Craig Murray, former UK amabassador to Uzbekistan, was a candidate in Blackburn.

Murray said of Blackburn: "This is very much a Labour rotten borough. There is a nexus of the police, the authorities and business - if we were in the Soviet Union, you would say mafia."

In the May 2002 local elections, a Blackburn city councillor - an Asian Muslim representing Labour - was jailed for rigging postal votes.

Around 25% of Blackburn voters are Muslim.

Now Muslims are saying they were bullied by mosque leaders and councillors to vote Labour.

One voter of Pakistani origin told The Independent that postal fraud in Blackburn was widespread. "It's worse than Birmingham."

Like other voters in Blackburn, the 57-year old Pakistani said Labour kept its hold through the mosque committee. "It is 100 per cent Labour. They control the mosque. They frighten the people."

http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/politics/story.jsp?story=635466

Tony Melia, Mr Straw's Liberal Democrat challenger stated that "vote-rigging is the biggest worry in Blackburn".

Mr Murray has received almost three dozen complaints. It seems, however, that people are not going to the police. "Locals say this is because voters fear reprisals from within the community, and the police are not trusted".