King's warning over racial tension

Oona King's today warned the East End risks being "set alight" by racial tensions stirred in her bitter contest against George Galloway.

The Labour MP urged an end to "harassment, bullying and intimidation" and warned of a community "catastrophe" that could last a generation.

Speaking to the Evening Standard after a week of violence in the contest for Bethnal Green and Bow, she made clear she blamed Mr Galloway, the Respect party candidate, for "stirring things up".

"If community politics are polarised along racial and religious lines, you could be creating catastrophe," she said.

"Everyone who lives here knows there are racial tensions that need to be carefully managed. We have a big problem of youth disorder and race comes into it.

"When politicians seek to stir things up by drawing on resentment, racial and religious, they risk opening Pandora's Box - and then it spirals out of their control."

This week Ms King's car was vandalised and 30 police had to be called in to guard a tense public meeting at which she was jeered. In another incident, an extremist mob threatened to kill Mr Galloway.

Asked if she feared serious disorder, Ms King said: "I am hinting at the opposite of community cohesion: the community splintering and being forced apart and a climate of fear, intimidation, bullying and harassment taking a grip in the East End." She foresees a risk of "rival mobs that scream and hurl abuse at each other".

"It could be set alight if people behave irresponsibly. The damage could, in the worst scenario, last a generation."

Ms King said she had decided to stop criticising Mr Galloway personally because she wanted to set an example as a conciliator and "draw some of the poison out of the atmosphere". She did not accuse Mr Galloway of "stirring" tensions but drew a contrast between her long-standing role in the East End and outsiders who had moved in just for the election. Mr Galloway bought a property in the constituency last summer when he announced his campaign.

As a black Jewish politician, Ms King is used to being threatened. She said she had not told her mother about how rough the election had become "because she would have a heart attack".

Her father, Preston King, is a USborn civil rights activist who grew up in the segregated south, and her uncle was the first black man to attempt a presidential campaign, using the slogan: "Unity for the Common Good". "I used to have his poster on my office wall," she said. "That slogan would be appropriate for this election."

The wall of her Cambridge Heath Road campaign headquarters now features a very different message: a poster likening Mr Galloway to the British fascist leader Oswald Mosley. It is headlined: "Anti-war, Pro-dictator, ex-Labour MP - sound familiar?"

She may wish for conciliation but the bitterness is plain to see.