Nasty battle over parliamentary seat in East London

The electoral battle in the London district of Bethnal Green and Bow is turning nasty following a egg attack on sitting Labour Party member of parliament, Oona King, who has a Jewish mother and a black American father. After the attack, King accused a rival's party, the "Respect" movement of the left-wing former Labour MP George Galloway, who is running against King, that its canvassers had asked Muslim voters in the constituency not to vote for her because she is Jewish. Respect said it would consider legal action against King if she repeated the claim. The contest between the pair for the once safe Labour seat has become deeply personal. The Labour loyalist is defending a 10,000 majority, but courted unpopularity when she supported Tony Blair's stance on the war in Iraq in a multicultural constituency where half of the voters are Muslims. The enmity between King and Galloway also surfaced at a campaign meeting on Sunday. Asked how he felt standing against one of only two black women MPs, Galloway claimed that King had "voted to kill a lot of women in the last few years. Many of them had much darker skins than her". King retaliated by attacking the salute Galloway once gave to Saddam Hussein on a visit to Iraq.