What’s in a name?
Perhaps it was inevitable that Cllr Rabina Khan would use the slogan “Yes We Khan!” – nothing wrong with a quick pun during an election campaign. Unfortunately, Tower Hamlets’ Rabina is not the only Khan in town – and Tower Hamlets is not the only place with a mayoral election coming up.
Labour MP Sadiq Khan – who oversaw Labour’s disastrous election campaign in Tower Hamlets in May 2014 – is being very active in supporting John Biggs for mayor of Tower Hamlets. This is not surprising given that Sadiq Khan wants to be Labour’s candidate for London Mayor in the 2016 elections, so he needs to get to know as many party members across the capital as possible.
Unfortunately, Sadiq Khan is also trading on his name (see below). In a more distant reference to the Obama slogan, he has been adorning his tweets with #TogetherWeKhan (“get @johnbiggs4mayor elected as it’s mayor”, he adds – erroneously including an apostrophe in “its” in a manner which makes one hope he never becomes Education Secretary).
The subtle distinction between “Yes We Khan” (Rabina) and “#Together We Khan” (Sadiq) is lost of some of his supporters. Im Z-Rahman tweeted his thanks to Sadiq for publishing some coming events and was so enthusiastic he added #TogetherWeKhan and #YesWeKhan.
If many more Labour supporters follow this lead and broadcast their support for the Independent Councillor Rabina, Labour will be very glad the election will be decided on the basis of votes cast and not on Twitter trends!