Brick thrown at council candidate's window next to where young children slept

Rochdale’s council leader has called for “a less confrontational and aggressive” election after a Labour candidate had a brick thrown at their window.

Coun Neil Emmott, Labour’s leader of the council, has penned a letter to Rochdale MP George Galloway to try and collaborate on work done with his predecessor Sir Tony Lloyd and calling for calm in the run up to the local elections next month. The letter cited an incident which saw a Labour council candidate have a brick thrown at their home recently, with two young children sleeping beneath the window.

The letter from Coun Emmott reads: “There are two reasons I am writing to you. First, to urge you to make contact with me or my team so that we might brief you on work we were doing with your predecessor, the late Sir Tony Lloyd, to represent the town’s interests.

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“Second, I implore you to do everything in your power to ensure the remainder of this local election campaign is conducted in a less confrontational and aggressive manner than it has been so far. One of our candidates’ homes was attacked last week with a brick which, mercifully, did not break the window beneath which his young children were sleeping.

“Around the brick was fastened a note that simply read: ‘F*** Labour.’ We can all agree to disagree on certain issues and points, but an attack on any candidates’ home is an attack on democracy itself and we cannot let that stand.”

The letter went on to state that the tone of political debate has become too divisive since the by-election back in February and urged all parties to ask for “no further intimidatory tactics from any quarter” from all of their