Bethnal Green Shortlist

Candidate Rupa Huq is reporting that the final shortlist of 6 for the Bethnal Green & Bow Labour parliamentary selection (the winner of which will have the delight of wiping the smirk off George Galloway's face at the next election) is as follows: Helal Abbas, Rushanara Ali, John Biggs, Rupa Huq, Shiria Khatun, Lutfor Rahman.

Labour's previous incumbent Oona King has been conspicuously absent from the constituency ever since Max Clifford told her that she was considered persona non grata in Tower Hamlets and should concentrate instead on building her career and preparing for eventual elevation to "another place" through appearances on BBC2 light entertainment shows, lobbying parliament with a group of schoolboys on behalf of the "Make Space" campaign and becoming chair of Coventry University's Institute of Community Cohesion.

And my union candidate, Ayub Ali, failed to pass the starting line after being waylaid by a group of female Party members who mistook him for a Kurdish singer and heartthrob.

There was a bit of embarrassment last week that I don't want to focus on particularly, involving the defection of Labour candidate Johanna Kaschke, who joined Respect in protest against our policies on public housing and the NHS, telling the East London Advertiser: "Labour has been hijacked by a bunch of ultra-conservatives. It's bad for democracy". I wonder who she meant by a comment like that?

Of our six candidates shortlisted to stand against Respect MP George Galloway, only three are believed to stand any chance of being selected.

Lutfur Rahman is a senior partner at City law firm McCormacks, who are known for their family law work but who are also leading practitioners in serious and complex casework and specialist fraud. He is a strong civil libertarian who was formerly General Secretary of Community Alliance for Police Accountability (CAPA).

Rupa Huq is the young sister of the much admired Konnie Huq, presenter on Blue Peter and erstwhile Bollywood film actress. Rupa shares her sister's stunning good looks and eyebrows borrowed from Dennis Healey's wardrobe department.

Her political position within the Party is not well understood and the rest of us are uncertain about it as well.

John Biggs is a London Assembly Member and has recently been p*****g Ken off no end by challenging the success of London's transport policies. He is believed to be Editor-in-Chief of nerd and geek gadget blog CrunchGear.com in his spare time.

So all in all, we've got a pretty good attack formation with which to beat Gorgeous George.

John Biggs could get the voters out in force, arranging transport to take the punters down to the polls. Lutfur Rahman could ensure that Respect did not take revenge on us for our activities last time round by committing election fraud. And Rupa could get into a nice pink leotard and distract George with a seductive (if somewhat hirsute) dance or two.

That should shake up Galloway, whose Lebanese girlfriend Rima Husseni is expecting their first child in a few weeks. Assuming, of course, that he actually notices the Labour challenge.