SUNDAY EXPRESS: IMMIGRATION Minister Phil Woolas has launched a desperate attempt to save his seat by distributing 45,000 leaflets saying he has had death threats and that he is being targeted by an Islamic group.
He has placed concerns over forms of Islam at the centre of the campaign in Oldham East and Saddleworth, which is becoming the dirtiest of the general election.
The leaflets are in the form of a hard-hitting eight-page newspaper whose front page has a picture of Mr Woolas caught in a rifle’s crosshairs.
They say the Islamic group, which cannot be named for legal reasons, is swamping the constituency with its own leaflets that brand Mr Woolas and his supporters as “bum kissers”.
One leaflet by a smaller group offered a hamper for anyone devising the “most creative” death threat against him, Mr Woolas said.
He is reporting those threats to the police.
He told the Sunday Express last night: “Mainstream Muslims will be sickened by these people who are giving Islam a bad name. We’ve got to stand up to them.”
The minister, whose majority is about 3,600, believes his Lib Dem challenger Elwyn Watkins, 46, will be the beneficiary of the group’s smear campaign.
Mr Watkins spent the bulk of his business career as a “personal adviser” to a wealthy Saudi sheikh. >>> Ted Jeory, Whitehall Editor | Sunday, May 02, 2010
