It's been a big year for voters in London, first the Mayoral elections in May, then the General Election in July. But if you live in Bow East you're about to get another chance to place a cross on a ballot paper, and all because 15302 voters put their cross on a ballot paper somewhere else.
A by-election is being held in Bow East ward for a seat on Tower Hamlets council and the date has been set for Thursday 12th September. Normally the next council election would be in 2026, but the resignation of one of Bow East's three Labour councillors has created a vacancy, and thus a by-election.
Councillors resign for all sorts of reasons, not always good. But in this case it's because Rachel Blake has a new job, specifically because in July 2022 she was selected as the Labour candidate for the constituency of Cities of London and Westminster. She wasn't expected to win, the seat's had a Conservative MP since it was created in 1951, and at the previous election Labour struggled in third. But 2024 was an unprecedented election across the board, even in Mayfair, Knightsbridge and Belgravia, and against all the odds Rachel romped home by seven percentage points.
With a swiftness that suggests they knew this was coming, the local Labour party has already selected its new candidate. He's Abdi Mohamed, a Public Affairs Manager for the charity Scope, also Chair of the GMB union's London group for BAME workers, also a local school governor. His Twitter account suggests he goes doorstepping even when there isn't an election on and also that he's much taller than everyone else he goes campaigning with. He'll probably win, in that Labour have taken all three Bow East seats in every election since 2006.
As yet none of the other parties have put forward a candidate, which isn't surprising given that the by-election was only called on Wednesday. The Stratford and Bow Conservatives are busy tweeting about national rather than local politics, and don't have a prayer. The Tower Hamlets Liberal Democrats last updated their local news page in 2022, but might get their act in gear. The Tower Hamlets Greens are similarly quiet online but successfully got a Green candidate elected nextdoor in Bow West in 2022 so might rate their chances.
Perhaps the biggest challenge comes from Mayor Lutfur Rahman's Aspire party who took all the runners-up places in the last election. They were a long way behind, with less than half of the Labour vote, but experience shows they're also very good at getting the vote out which can (and has) proved decisive in previous votes with a low turnout. An Aspire victory in September would be the least surprising shock result.
As things stand we only have two councillors representing us here in Bow East - Amina Ali and Marc Francis - but it turns out Marc is Rachel's husband so the E3 political dynasty goes on. We don't yet know who'll be the third Bow East councillor, only that it won't make any difference because Tower Hamlets is a Mayoralty so the number of councillors is irrelevant.
What I do note is that I voted for Rachel when she was my local councillor and she's now the MP for Cities of London and Westminster. I also voted for Rushanara Ali when she was my local MP, before the boundaries shifted, and she's now the MP for Bethnal Green and Stepney. And I also voted for Uma Kumaran who's my new local member now that Bow's linked with Stratford, and she's the MP for Stratford and Bow. Which means I've voted for three of the MPs in the current Houses of Parliament, indeed three current women MPs, and what are the chances of that?
HYPERLOCAL HISTORY MONTH: Let's vote again
