All the candidates for Tower Hamlets mayor are being invited to write a piece for this blog about why they want the job.
So far, Neil King of the Conservatives has contributed here, as has the Liberal Democrats’ John Griffiths, here.
Next up is Cllr Helal Abbas, the current council leader, the Labour candidate and the favourite to win. Abbas had finished his first stint as council leader by the time I joined the East London Advertiser in September 2005. Over the next three years or so, although he remained largely in the background, he was still the centre of much attention because he was a magnet for faction fights.
It was always said that his great enemy was Michael Keith, the man who replaced him as leader. When Michael lost his seat in 2006, his great friend Denise Jones grabbed the reins.
They were heady days back then; and Abbas and his own good Lutfur Rahman spent their time plotting Denise’s downfall. However, the friendship was ripped apart in 2007 when both men tried to become the party’s parliamentary candidate for Bethnal Green and Bow, a quest in which they both failed after failing to beat Rushanara Ali.
Lutfur then became council leader, alliances changed…and now we are where we are.
While up in Manchester for the Labour party conference to some of the (non-Tower Hamlets) people who were involved in the mayoral selection process. The Guardian’s Dave Hill has done the same – see here. What we were both separately told – possibly by the same people, I don’t know – was that the major concern over Lutfur was his actual ability to do the job. The appointment of Lutfur Ali as assistant chief executive and the sacking of Martin Smith as chief executive raised serious concerns in senior circles.
Similar doubts have been expressed to me by council officers, who also say they have been impressed with the way Abbas has been running things since May.
Here’s Abbas’s article.
Social Cohesion
Tower Hamlets is a borough with a rich cultural history.
We have traditionally been a place for new arrivals to the country, with our heritage shaped by Jewish and Huguenot settlers and, more recently, the large Bangladeshi community and arrivals from China and Somalia.
We are a borough where children in our schools speak over 90 community languages in an area just eight miles wide.
And yet this diversity doesn’t divide us.
Our latest Annual Residents’ Survey reflects that our communities recognise the value of unified, strong communities.
Seventy-five per cent of residents said the borough was somewhere where people from different backgrounds get on well together, up from 69 per cent in the previous year.
This is partly because we’ve taken a stand together in the face of adversity.
After the London bombings our community leaders were quick to jointly renounce the violent actions of a mindless few. This clear message, led by our active Interfaith Forum, reflected a borough resilient to messages of extremism and hate.
This has remained a powerful tool for our communities. Earlier this year we made a robust stand against the use of a local building for a debate organised by a group with extremist links.
Our community cohesion is also achieved by working together.
As a council we work with our partners to promote One Tower Hamlets; a place where we work together to reduce inequalities and ensure our communities continue to live well together.
Our main partners in achieving this are local people – and we all have a part to play.
We’re developing the idea of a powerful public – where individuals and communities are empowered to do more for their local area and to shape their own communities.
We know this can work. Our hugely successful You Decide! scheme, has seen local people choose how to spend millions of pounds in ways which are of direct benefit to very local communities.
This has engendered a sense of pride of place – an ownership at a local level which in turn feeds our pride in our borough as a whole.
We’ve been through some financially turbulent times, and more tough times ahead – but together we’re stronger.
Together we can lobby the Government to demand a fair deal for local people, just like we’re lobbying the Olympic organisers to return the marathon to our borough.
Together we’re proud of our diverse history – proud of what we’ve achieved in the face of those who would seek to divide us.
But there is always more to be done.
We’ll be leading the way as a council by tackling the underlying key issues of worklessness and lack of affordable housing.
And we’ll be working with local people, encouraging more businesses to sign our No Place Hate pledge and asking everyone to help shape their Tower Hamlets into a borough we can all be proud of.
Trial by Jeory 
Standard Labour Party mantras – doesn’t say much about what he will bring to the role of elected mayor; in fact, he doesn’t say ANYTHING about himself, it’s all “we”.
Is he covertly making a case against the concept of directly elected mayors and intimating that, if elected, his reign as mayor will be a collective arrangement with the Labour Group?
Abbas the Machevellian strikes with one sword on Lutfur Rahman and the next sword on the unwitting voters like us!
Lets see what he trully is behind the mask that he wears!
A candidate who has no democratic mandate.
The real question is what is Ted’s agenda?? Why the selective bias? Can we trust Ted’s journalism?
“James Hughes” not in fact a local party member) – why doesn’t Abbas have a democractic mandate. He was endorsed by the NEC. Lutfur Rahman was removed because of serious allegations of corruption which he never contested. He then expelled himsself the Labour Party so they can’t even investigate these. It’s Rahman who has no respect for local Party democracy.
BBC2 – never did suggest I was a member of the Labour party. It’s called having an opinion.
He was imposed upon the party members. The results show it. Im no fan of Lutfur Rahman, but why not at least select the candidate who came second? Is this democracy?
Ken Livinngston was forced to expel himself as well, remember?
Never did suggest I was a member of the Labour pary- its called having an opinion.
Ok it seems Lutfur isnt quite whiter than white, but why then select the thrid place candidate? I love democracy. Let’s bring it back to Tower Hamlets.
RESPONSE to Democracy: its quite obvious with all the press conference’s, the ‘you tube’ videos and circulars that it is very clear that Mr Rahman’s stance to stand as independant comes in protest against those ‘New Labourites’. Rahman seems to detest those, whose acts of injustice and machinations has clearly stemmed from the fear of the ‘Old Labour striking back’. This is not the first time the regional commitee had machinated against lead candidates as such.
The only question is where was the NEC and the regional commitee when the likes of Abbas campaigned his filthy politics in mosques and the large section of bengali community in LBTH during 2005?
Where was Mr Abbas’s principle of not towing the party line in 2005? Who did Mr Abbas campaign for during the 2005 Parimentary elections? Did he really campaign for Oonaa King or the future of a Prospective Bengali candidate’ for 2010?
It is true both Abbas and Rahman worked hard to bring alot of support back to the labour party from respect and this journey started by getting the likes of Oliur and Rania to join labour whip…
This whole election campaign around Abbas and Rahman is getting really silly. Mr Abbas cannot handle the fact that his poodle Rahman has decided to be the MAN! By breaking ranks and joining the people of towerhamlet!
Now no “GOD FATHER’s” will tolerate the breaking of ranks will they? Well in Mr Abbas’s case he changed his politics. You can see that he has funny enough supported Oona King against Veteran Ken Livingstone for the Labour GLA Mayoral selection which of Ken has won.
Lets not talk too much about the unpricipled man Mr Abbas and the victim Lutfur Rahman! What about our man John Biggs? Whether Mr Rahman is a victim or not, Mr Biggs is clearly one. The party whip may have got him under manners. But this is absurd!!!
The bottom line: “The election in Tower Hamlets is to bring YET another WAKE UP CAL for the Labour Party the whole institution”
MY MESSAGE: FIX UP! LOOK SHARP!!!!!!
Why is Abbas the candidate? If Lutfur Rahman is disallowed, John Biggs came second in the members ballot. What is the point of us voting if the candidate who came third wins?
Everyone knew there was issues with the TH labour membership and has been so for the last 10-12 years, which is why it has been in special measures, leading to members unable to select their candidates for local elections. This resulted in councillors unaccountable to the local ward parties as the wards/members did not select them, thus they didn’t have to worry about being accountable to their wards.
Knowing all this London Labour allowed the TH mayoral election to take place. They went through a vigorous process during the selection to decide who was eligible to vote and who wasn’t. All this then indicates that they were happy to let members elect who their candidate would be.
Then to say there was irregularities in the membership and suspend the winning candidate on the say so of one of the losing candidates, is a disgrace and makes a mockery of the whole process, of the party and most importantly of the members.
Just because London Labour and its leader Ken Clarke and a few other protégées of his didn’t get their preferred candidate, they then suddenly void the election and impose their preferred candidate.
This is like a third world dictatorship and if we wanted such dictatorship we would go and live in a third world country.
I am no fan of Lutfur and neither am I a fan of Abbas (I preferred Biggs), but when you have a election, you have to accept the result and the result was that Lutfur won it with a clear and large margin. We’re not talking about a few votes but over 150 votes from 800+ votes cast.
I commend those labour party members who are standing up to this injustice and dictatorship.
On this basis, Abbas has no real manadate to be the Labour Party candidate. He will be a puppet of London Labour Party and Ken Clarke and Micheal Kieth, who is the main man pulling all of Abbas’s strings.
What’s suspicious is why Ted is not posting Lutfur’s statement to the public on why he wants to be a mayor which I sent to him in a previous post. I posted it on the comments, but why hasn’t he put this up in the same way as has some of the other candidates! Ted is biased against Lutfur? Is he and his friend Gilligan doing this to benefit own politicial interests and their witch-hunt and Islaphobic “Islamic Supremcists” theories????
Dear Anonymous
I presume you’re referring to the comment posted on this thread. As it was posted anonymously, you would need to provide me with some proof that it is a genuine statement from Lutfur Rahman. I have left messages for him, both directly and indirectly, but the invitation to write a piece for this blog is yet to be taken up.
Maybe he is ignoring you because of the politically motivated bias you constantly show in your writing? I guess if you were a bit more fair and attacked him and Helal Abbas at same time that might make him think you and Gilligan are not out to get him for your own political agendas!
[…] Ted Jeory carries an article from Labour candidate for Tower Hamlets mayor, Hellal Abbas. Here it is: […]