As Guido pointed out last week, Labour is hypocritically campaigning against the Government’s planned voter ID scheme, despite mandating Labour Conference attendees to provide identification. The double standards don’t just stop there…

In Poplar and Limehouse – and at Hull MP Diana Johnson’s deselection vote tonight – the local Labour party are asking attendees to bring photo ID, their membership card or a household bill. Are they saying the disadvantaged people without photo ID can’t participate in democracy?…

The vetting Apsana Begum is carrying out clearly doesn’t extend to her campaign team, however, which counts Zahin Ahmed as a key member; someone who pushes anti-semitic conspiracy theories on Twitter, and is the son of Lutfur Rahman‘s right-hand man, Ohid Ahmed.

The Bury South Labour branch go one step further, asking for both photo ID and membership cards where possible. There are fewer checks for trying to get through an airport…

After their absolute car crash last time the Lib Dems adopted a former Lutfur Rahman-backed candidate, you would think they would be more careful not to select someone associated with the disgraced former Tower Hamlets Mayor in future. Apparently not, as they’ve now selected Rahman’s hand-picked successor in Tower Hamlets as an MEP candidate – Rabina Khan. She’s been on quite a journey:

• May 2010: Khan is elected as a Labour Councillor in Shadwell
• Oct 2010: Khan leaves Labour to join newly-elected mayor Lutfur Rahman’s Cabinet
• May 2014: Re-elected as Councillor for Rahman’s new Tower Hamlets First party
• April 2015: Lutfur Rahman and Tower Hamlets First found guilty of “corrupt and illegal practices”, THF is disbanded and Rahman’s election is voided although Khan and other THF Councillors keep their seats
• May 2015: Khan stands in the subsquent Mayoral by-election as Rahman’s chosen successor, losing to Labour
• Nov 2016: Khan splits from the Rahman-supporting independents to form her own party, the People’s Alliance of Tower Hamlets (PATH)
• May 2018: Khan places second in the Mayoral election again but all other PATH Councillors except her lose their seats
• Aug 2018: Khan dissolves PATH and joins the Lib Dems, along with the now disgraced former PATH councillor Abjol Miah
• April 2019: Khan selected by Lib Dems as an MEP candidate for London

Only time will tell where Khan’s long and winding political journey takes her next. However, she’ll fit right in in Brussels – an FoI request previously revealed Khan claimed a staggering £1,085 for taxi fares in just 8 months while serving in Rahman’s Cabinet, including £120 for a 1.5-mile trip. From one gravy train to another…

Guido readers will have been following the collective calamities of the Labour and Lib Dem campaigns in the Shadwell by-election in Tower Hamlets, with Labour selecting a fan of a banned pro-bin Laden hate preacher while the Lib Dems were forced to ditch their candidate altogether just a day before the vote after Guido revealed some of the deeply anti-Semitic content he had posted online. Tom Brake is wishing he’d done his research before turning out to support him last month…

Both candidates still went on to fight yesterday’s by-election, with Labour’s Asik Rahman ultimately losing by 98 votes to the candidate for the new ‘Aspire’ Party, Mohammed Harun Miah. It won’t surprise anyone to learn who is behind Aspire – none other than rotten former Tower Hamlets Mayor Lutfur Rahman. Rahman is gearing up for another mayoral run in 2022 after his personal ban for a litany of electoral offences expires in 2021…

Rahman had previously given his personal endorsement to the Lib Dems’ disgraced ex-candidate Abjol Miah back in 2012, while the local Lib Dem campaign this time round was heavily targeted against Labour, helping Rahman’s new man Mohammad Harun Miah sneak in and giving the country’s most corrupt local politician his first electoral foothold back in Tower Hamlets. A Miah coincidence…?

Lutfur Rahman this morning lost the latest stage of his legal bid to overturn a ban barring him from running for office for five years. The former Tower Hamlets mayor – who was removed, banned and ordered to pay £250,000 costs after being found guilty of electoral fraud in 2015 – had asked two high court judges to reconsider the ban. Another attempt by Rahman to overturn the ban failed in January last year; he will remain barred from standing until 2020. Tower Hamlets is well rid of him…

Disgraced Lutfur Rahman’s attempt to return to politics is veering from disaster to disaster. Last week the Electoral Commission rejected his plans to register a new political party. Now it emerges Rahman will face a Solicitors’ Regulatory Authority tribunal. Rahman was found guilty of illegal practices by an Election Court in 2015; the SRA will argue that he brought disgrace on the legal profession. The Law Society Gazette reports:

“The SRA alleges Rahman thereby failed to uphold the rule of law and the proper administration of justice, failed to act with integrity and failed to behave in a way that maintains the trust the public places in him and in the provision of legal services.”

Rahman’s tribunal begins on 7th March and is listed for four days. Will he go the way of Phil Shiner and get kicked out of legal profession?

Ohid Ahmed is a councillor in Tower Hamlets, where he used to be Lutfur Rahman’s deputy mayor. In a Facebook post almost as ill-advised as his old boss’ penchant for bribery, Ahmed appears to have incriminated himself using his phone while driving:

In the comments below his post, Ahmed is asked by a friend whether he was in the passenger’s seat, to which he replies: “I often stop when I see a good view”. Guido will let readers make up their own minds about whether it looks like he stopped before he took his phone out.

We report, you decide…