The Willesden and Brent Times spoke to local candidates standing as independents or for the smaller parties, including Shahrar Ali for the Green Party and Atiq Malik. Atiq Malik is Brents' own ‘controversial’ candidate. An ex-conservative councillor in Queensbury ward, jumped/pushed from the party in 2008, he has previously been referred to the Standards Board for England, the standards watchdog for Councillors and other officials. He was subsequently cleared of misconduct....

YouElect is a non-profit and independent British Muslim grassroots initiative aimed at promoting voter registration and political engagement. I’ve just looked up Brent Central where Sarah Teather is the Community Choice Candidate, commended by both the British Muslim Initiative and salaam.co.uk. Dawn Butler and Sachin Rajput are also profiled on the YouElect site.

Is Barry Gardiner standing as an independent? You’d think he doesn’t want to be associated with Labour from the look of his campaign materials. See the full leaflet at The Straight Choice.

Brent’s Labour Group formal apology for issuing leaflets with defamatory claims about Sarah Teather is on page 4 of the WB Times this week. Willesden and Brent Times, 23 April, 2010

The Straight Choice election leaflet project is an archive of election leaflets distributed throughout the campaign. This is a helpful thing to be doing as ….. Promises that candidates make in their leaflets can be compared to what they promise to do elsewhere. In the future we can also compare the voting record of MPs with what they promised on the campaign trail. It helps catch parties or candidates who are breaking electoral law - 2 parties have been reported to the authorities based on leaflets uploaded to TheStraightChoice....