Council election 2014: Tory candidate says Bangladeshi community are ‘fed up’ of Labour
Shahin Ahmed. Picture: Polly Hancock. - Credit: Archant
A minicab driver who moved to the UK from Bangladesh in 1999 claims Camden’s Bangladeshi population is “fed up” of the Labour-run council and wants to see change.
Shahin Ahmed, 38, is standing as a Conservative candidate in Regent’s Park ward in next month’s election and hopes to fill the vacancy left by outgoing Regent’s Park councillor Tulip Siddiq, who is standing as Labour’s parliamentary candidate for Hampstead and Kilburn in next year’s general election.
He said: “Camden has the UK’s second largest Bangladeshi population. For many years, Camden Bangladeshi people have voted for Labour and they have not got the service they needed.
“For too long the Labour Party here in Camden have told people in Camden that they do not have a choice, they must vote Labour.
“I think only the Conservative Party will deliver a more equal society for all people in Camden.”
Soon after graduating with a degree in political science and modern history in his native Bangladesh in 1995, Mr Ahmed met his British Bangladeshi wife while she visited family in the country.
In 1999, Mr Ahmed moved to the UK with his wife and the couple now live with their three children in Seymour House, Churchway, Euston.
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Mr Ahmed is general secretary of the central London branch of Bangladesh Nationalist Party and is currently trying to set up a Conservative Friends of Bangladesh group.
But he insists that as a councillor he would serve the interests of all residents, not just Bangladeshi people living in Regent’s Park.
“If anyone wants any kind of help, I will always try to help,” he said. “When I knock on the doors of Bangladeshi people they tell me that they are fed up of Labour.
“Eighty per cent of Bangladeshi people in Camden live in council properties. They have to wait six to eight weeks for a small repair job. They are fed up with the way the council is run.
“Camden Council run by the Conservatives would do better because of the Conservatives in government. There would be better funding.”
