Trial by Jeory

A little birdie has whispered to me that, should he be elected, Lutfur Rahman is considering scrapping East End Life – Tower Hamlets council’s hated £1m-a-year propaganda paper.

I’d imagine that there would be a cheaper and less frequent replacement, perhaps a fortnightly or monthly paper.

It would be a clever, sure-fire vote winner and it would undoubtedly please my former employers at the East London Advertiser.

Watch this space…

UPDATE – 9.40pm

I’m hearing that East End Life is highly likely to be pared back considerably. It is considered by those likely to be in power come October that is “outrageous” that East End Life has such a heavy pagination and that it carries restaurant reviews and TV listings. All the elements of the paper which effectively means it competes with the East London Advertiser and other local papers are likely to go. It will be a much thinner paper, but it is likely to remain weekly for the time being.

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Just a quick update to this post on Lutfur Rahman’s campaign manager, Ohid Ahmed.

According to the switchboard at Camden Council, Ohid’s job title is Interim Camden Working Contracts and Performance Manager in the Culture and Environment department. His responsibilities are likely to include assessing and recommending any bids for contract work within that directorate, which covers highways, environmental health, planning and regeneration.

Posts classified as “interim” are temporary and can command higher salaries. Recruitment is often done through agencies and not through public advertisements.

According to this biography of him (you need to search his name), Ohid holds an MBA, but he is only a junior part-qualified Certified Accountant (the ACCA body). I’d imagine that he has experience to do the job, but did he have more than anybody else who went for it?

UPDATE  – 4.30pm

I’ve just spoken to Ohid, who tells me that when he left the council cabinet in May 2010, he lost the annual allowance of £14,000 that he’d been used to for a few years as a lead councillor. “I needed to find some work, so I signed on with Badenoch and Clark recruitment consultancy. They suggested the job with the council and I went for the interview. I didn’t even tell Nasim [Ali, the leader of Camden Council] about it. He didn’t even know that I got the job.”

As for the Eurostar ticket, he said it was former Tower Hamlets Assistant Chief Executive Sara Williams who approached him with the tickets because some had become available to the council. He said a few others also took them.

I’m happy to set the record straight.

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The selection of Lutfur Rahman as Labour’s candidate for mayor has sent his opponents into a tailspin of despair. And not just among Labour members.

Politicians in all parties are trying to work out how he can be stopped. Those in Labour cling to the belief that Labour’s NEC will be so horrified by his selection that they will refuse to confirm his candidacy and instead impose their own choice before nominations for the election close on September 24.

There are others within Labour, especially those concerned about the people with whom Lutfur is surrounding himself, who are quietly encouraging another possibility – one which would underline the seriousness with which they view the situation. They are suggesting an anti-Lutfur candidate from the other main national parties, ie a single Coalition candidate for both the Tories and Lib Dems. And this idea is winning cross-party support.

This afternoon, the Lib Dem candidate, John Griffiths, held his launch party for the press at a restaurant in Brick Lane. Some fifteen party activists turned up, as did a cameraman from Channel S and a couple of photographers, but apart from that I was the only reporter there. Oddly for a press conference, no time was allotted for questions. It summed up the state of the once mighty Lib Dems in the borough.

Which is a shame, because in Griffiths they have a good candidate whose track record as a councillor until he lost his seat in 2006 was excellent. If you’ve been to York Hall in Bethnal Green recently, thank John: he was the man who initiated and led the campaign to save it from closure six years ago.

The party retains good ideas, including a thought-provoking pledge to devolve power from Tower Hamlets HQ in Mulberry Place to the various districts that comprise the borough. How many people say they live in Tower Hamlets, the Lib Dems ask. Rather, residents prefer to say they live in Bow, for example, or on the Isle of Dogs, or in Spitalfields, Wapping, Whitechapel, Stepney, or Shadwell. The Lib Dems therefore argue that these areas should have the chance to run some of their own affairs, along the lines of town councils. Moves are already afoot in Wapping to make this happen.

However, even Lib Dems quietly agree that they have little chance of seeing these ideas put into practice on their own. So their brightest minds are actively considering talks with Tory counterparts to run just one candidate. Such a deal would of course require either John to stand down, or Neil King from the Tories to do so – or both. Or they could run as a mayor and deputy mayor joint ticket. Or, more likely, given that this is Tower Hamlets, where race counts, a ticket that includes candidates from both the Bangladeshi and non-Bangladeshi “communities”.

Would Tory and Lib Dem HQs accept such a proposition? In normal circumstances, undoubtedly no. But Tower Hamlets politicians are arguing that these are exceptional circumstances. They say they would tell their superiors that, given the controversy of Labour’s selection process, they are acting in the interests of democracy and that it is a good opportunity to take control of a £1.2billion Olympic borough.

Crucially, they also argue that the ramifications of such a move would ensure national press attention, which would help boost what is otherwise expected to be a terrible turnout of about 25% next month.

In other words, strategists hope the move would create its own momentum. They have about 10 days in which to decide…

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In the YouTube video I posted of Lutfur Rahman’s acceptance speech last Saturday, here, you’ll see that he gives specific thanks to a Cllr Ohid Ahmed. Appropriately, given that he’s Lutfur’s campaign manager, he’s standing directly behind his right shoulder and cheering with all the theatrical passion of Peter Mandelson circa 1997.

No one has been able to work it out, but Ohid’s career has really taken off in the last few years. Officers who have dealt with him cringe at the mention of his name. They say he has a slightly aggressive style and that he becomes frustrated when he can’t make himself understood.

Yet, come October 21 he could well be one of the most powerful men in Tower Hamlets: a victorious Lutfur is bound to reward him with a top job, possibly even as deputy mayor. So, let’s take a closer look at him.

His declaration of interests can be seen here. You’ll notice that he owns two properties in the borough. Land Registry records show that he bought the flat in Aberfeldy Street from Poplar Harca housing association in 2003 for £87,000. What a good deal that was! And according to the electoral roll, he actually lives in the townhouse in Oban Street. I can’t find any Land Registry documents for that purchase.

You’ll also see that he likes his jollies.

17.11.07: Hospitality received from Eurostar (free tickets to Paris (return)) for Cllr Ahmed and Son to mark the re-opening of St. Pancras Station.

15th Jan – 26th Feb 2010, Guest of Labour Friends of Bangladesh (LFB) Private fact-finding trip to Bangladesh- Economy return flights, hotel, transport etc approx £1,200 partly sponsored by Canary Wharf Group PLC

27th May – Guest (Box Ticket) for Cricket Match between Bangladesh and England approx £100.

A month in Bangladesh?? Shurely shome mishtake….

Free tickets for Eurostar for the opening of that well known Tower Hamlets terminus, St Pancras International….

A corporate box for the cricket…., but as a guest of whom?? I think we should be told!

But the most intriguing fact of all is his new job at Camden Council, which is led by fellow Labour Friends of Bangladesh supporter, Nasim Ali – who, according to his own declarations, also attended the same Lord’s test match in a corporate box. Funnily enough, Nasim and Ohid were also on the same “fact finding” trip to Bangladesh in February: see here.

If anyone knows what job Ohid does at Camden, where and when the job was advertised, and how he was selected, can you please drop me a line….?

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Following my post last night about the role of Shiraj Haque, it’s time to raise a couple of points with Lutfur Rahman and his two closest lieutenants, Cllr Marc Francis and Cllr Ohid Ahmed.

(By way of background, Marc has spent his professional and political life working for and with the likes of Shelter to tackle the issues of housing and overcrowding. Ohid, a “regeneration specialist”, has spent his professional and political life working with big developers…)

In this article for the Tower Hamlets freesheet, East End Life, last October, both Lutfur and Marc are quoted as follows:

The green light has been given for 17 new council homes to be built in the borough.

Tower Hamlets Council has been awarded £1.7 million from the Government to build the affordable homes as part of the biggest council house building programme in almost two decades.

It was one of 49 local authorities that successfully bid for a portion of the £127 million fund – and the council will match the Government’s investment in order to fund the project.

Most of the homes will be three or more bedrooms to help meet the demand for larger properties, and will be completed by March 2011.

Lead councillor for housing and development Marc Francis welcomed the funding: ”Tackling the desperate shortage of affordable homes is right at the top of this council’s priorities.

”Overcrowding is undermining our children’s health, education and life chances. And the shortage of affordable homes has forced far too many of our young East Enders to leave the borough.”

He said local housing associations had done a great job building thousands of new homes in recent years. But council leader Cllr Lutfur Rahman and he believed that local councils should play their part too.

”That is why the council has developed an Overcrowding Reduction Strategy,” he said.

Here’s an extract from that strategy:

The strategy aims to tackle overcrowding by:

• Reduce overcrowding in existing housing stock, and put in place preventative measures to reduce future overcrowding.
• Increase the overall supply of housing for local people including a range of affordable, family housing.
• Prevent overcrowding and homelessness by providing access to the right housing options at the right time

Tower Hamlets has invested in pilots to determine how the Council with partners might best support not just overcrowded families but also under-occupiers in order to make best use of stock.

One of the reasons why overcrowding exists is because some large family-sized homes provided by the council and housing associations are occupied by people who could very easily afford to live elsewhere. I suspect the four-storey home in Pritchard’s Road, which millionaire Shiraj Haque rents from the Peabody Trust, is one such case.

I’ve no idea how long Shiraj has lived in the modern-looking property, but according to the Land Registry, the freehold for the land was transferred, presumably for development, by Tower Hamlets council to Peabody in 1998. Electoral roll records show that Shiraj has been registered there at least seven years, (ie from 2003), while one member of his family – I think it is his wife – has been registered there for nine years, ie from 2001.

Again, I don’t know whether their home is classified as social renting or whether they rent it from Peabody on the open market; if it is the former, however, it is worth looking at Peabody’s own requirements here:

How to apply for a home
To apply for social housing, you must initially apply and complete the application form at your local council. They will assess your housing need and may house you in their own property, refer you to Peabody or to another housing association.

You can only apply direct to Peabody if you are looking for supported living for older people.

Choice-based lettings
Some local authorities operate a choice-based lettings scheme. Instead of simply waiting until you reach the top of the list and taking the property that you are offered, choice-based lettings allows applicants to bid for those properties they are interested in.

If more than one person bids, then the property is given to the person with the greatest housing need.

We are committed to ensuring that social housing residents (those in general housing needs) have more choice and control over where they live and we run our own choice-based lettings scheme, selections.

If your council runs a choice-based lettings scheme, then you can choose to view our homes which are advertised locally.

You can also view the full range of homes available on the selections website and bid for any home for which you are matched.

So, I’m intending to send the following questions to Lutfur on this issue.

1. Do you welcome the support of Shiraj Haque?

2. Has he or any company in which he has a control provided any cash or non-cash support to your mayoral campaign? If so, please detail.

3. Were you aware that Shiraj Haque owns, through his company Renegade Investment Properties Ltd, £2.4million of property assets, and through Redstar Assets Ltd, in which he has a 50% share, a further £0.75million?

4. Given that issues of overcrowding, lengthy housing waiting lists and the lack of family-sized accommodation are central to your campaign, do you think it is morally right for wealthy individuals to live in large homes provided by housing associations?

5. Have you visited Shiraj Haque’s four-storey home in Pritchard’s Road, which is owned by the Peabody Trust and where, according to the electoral roll, he has lived for at least seven years?

6. Were you aware that it was owned by a housing association and have you asked him why he does not vacate it in favour of a family more in need?

7. Have you asked him, or will you ask him, when he or his family applied to Peabody Trust to live in the property, who made the application, what proof of need they provided and whether he made his fortune since moving in?

If anybody has any more questions you’d like me to pose, let me know.

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The picture on the left is taken from a story we printed in the East London Advertiser in 2008. It is of Shiraj Haque, King of the Brick Lane curry kings. Anyone with more than a passing involvement in Tower Hamlets politics would have come across him. He boasts about his influence with politicians – and for good reason. As owner of the Clifton Group, he owns the Clifton curry houses in Brick Lane and on the Isle of Dogs, where he also runs a supermarket. He also owns property and investment companies (more on that later). At the age of 53, he is said to be a millionaire and the most powerful man in Brick Lane.

He also says he’s a Labour supporter, but he’s also in the past said to have offered funds to the Tories, Respect and even the Lib Dems. He’s a man for all seasons is our Shiraj. But he’s certainly no saint.

Over the three years or so I worked at the East London Advertiser, he was a regular in the paper, popping up to receive some restaurant award, or to deny accusations by the BBC that his restaurant was a filthy disgrace, or to deny allegations that he had assaulted a fellow Brick Lane businessman, or to deny suggestions that Bethnal Green’s huge Baishakhi Mela festival was being used as a front for a human trafficking racket, here and here. [He was never charged with any of those offences and it must be said that dirty trick allegations in the Brick Lane business community are commonplace.]

His involvement in the running of the annual Mela in Weavers Fields is worthy of particular note. As chair of the Baishakhi Mela Trust, he developed May’s three-day event into a huge success, regularly attracting crowds of 100,000. Curiously for a businessman so intent on making money, Haque insisted he made no profit from the festival and that he donated his enormous energies purely as an act of philanthropic goodwill. Whether that was the case, we’ll never really know: in 2007, Tower Hamlets council, which subsidised the celebrations, decided to sever relations with him. Why? Because following concerns over the Trust’s finances, the council sent in auditors from Deloitte, who could:

‘provide no assurance that the financial practices and controls adopted by the BMT are sufficiently adequate and effective to enable robust financial management of the trust’s funds’.

That is, both the council and independent auditors were aghast at the lack of financial control in the Trust. The council then invited other groups to run the event. To Shiraj, that was an act of war. Ever since, it has been his aim to regain control over his beloved Mela.

Was this one of the reasons why he backed Lutfur Rahman’s bid to become the first directly elected mayor of Tower Hamlets? Time will tell. What is certain is that he’s pulling out all the stops for Lutfur.

Here he is quoted on Andrew Gilligan’s Telegraph blog:

“The campaign for a directly elected mayor was my initiative. Whatever expenses were required, I had to pay for it. Tower Hamlets politics was corrupt. I needed someone to fix it, so I thought let’s try him [Lutfur].”

Mr Haque denied bankrolling Lutfur’s personal campaign – which has been notably better-resourced than that of any of the other candidates – even though Lutfur’s election leaflets are exactly identical in design and typeface to those produced by the campaign for a directly-elected mayor. “Many things look the same in the world,” said Mr Haque. “It’s the computer age.”

And here he is, even inviting members of the Tower Hamlets Tory party to a massive fundraising/campaign event at the Troxy on Tuesday.

You are cordially invited to attend the grand community endorsement &  ‘Lutfur for Mayor’ campaign launch and dinner on Tuesday 14th September  at the Troxy on Commercial Road at 6pm. Special guest speakers, fabulous  dinner followed by live entertainment – an event not to be missed! Be part of something amazing, be part of history in the making! Please register online to attend at www.lutfurrahman.com thank you, shiraj haque

Now, for someone so passionate about the future of Tower Hamlets, isn’t it good to see that he actually lives in the borough…? According to the electoral roll and documents at Companies House, he lives in the Bethnal Green/Haggerston area, right on the border with Hackney along Pritchard’s Road. And not only that, Land Registry records show that the canny millionaire rents his house from the Peabody Trust, one of Britain’s oldest pioneers in social housing. (I knocked on his door earlier today; there was no answer, but a neighbour said he lived there.)

And all the time he writes out rent cheques to Peabody each month, he is acting as landlord to his own tenants. His Renegade Investment Properties is a branch of Clifton Properties, whose marketing blurb can be seen in this link:

The popularity of the property market has not escaped the grasp of Clifton Properties.  Established before the millennium, Clifton Properties experts understand the ins and outs of a dreadfully complicated and daunting property market.

The latest accounts for Renegade, which is wholly owned by Shiraj Haque, show it has a property portfolio worth £2.4million, while his Redstar Assets Ltd controls £1.5million. (His Clifton Group of restaurants are more complicated. More on those later.)

How fortunate Labour and Lutfur are to have such support. Incidentally, I can’t trace any donations made by Shiraj to the Labour Party on the registers kept by the Electoral Commission. If anyone knows under which names those donations were made, do please let me know.

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Apologies for the lack of posts. I fled the country for a few days following the Labour selection on Saturday night.

(It was a coincidence, Lutfur.)

Just catching up on a couple of developments.

Here’s comedy moment number 1. (Before you watch it, here’s what I wrote on September 1: “It’s now four days until Labour’s grand day when they will vote for their candidate, then unite behind him or her and say what a wonderfully “rigorous” contest it was”. The man introducing Lutfur is Labour regional party director Ken Clark, who, I understand was a prime mover in trying to prevent Lutfur’s candidacy).

More comedy gold later.

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Well, well, well…there’s something at least to take from tonight’s result: it will keep the writers of Private Eye amused for the months and years to come.

As I type, I understand that right now in the corridors of the Labour party office in Bethnal Green, there is little celebrating, but much shouting and arguing. The man the party hierarchy tried so hard to block is now its candidate-elect for next month’s mayoral election. If the party confirms his victory and confirms it is willing to let the result stand, it is 95 per cent certain that in about six weeks’ time Lutfur Rahman will be one of the most powerful local politicians in Britain. The man who has been mired in so much controversy, the man who struggles to command an audience, the man who trembles under questioning (and, yes, the man who, to his credit, was also good enough to bow to grass roots pressure and save the Bancroft History Library and archives), will be in charge of a £1billion budget.

I’m told that Lutfur’s campaign was executed like a well-funded “military operation” and he seems to have benefited from what a Bengali councillor told me was a “real absence of the white vote”. This is how it works in Tower Hamlets. There will be close scrutiny over his campaign funds and who has financed him…and who might expect favours in return. His enemies tell me to watch this space for the award of communications/publishing contracts and who might run the lucrative Baishakhi Mela festival.

If Lutfur beats the Lib Dems’ John Griffiths, Tory Neil King and whoever Respect decide to pick, Marc Francis, who six weeks ago probably thought his political career was over, will likely be deputy mayor.

More later, probably.

UPDATE:

You can see how the votes unfolded on this link here.

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There are now less than 17 hours until voting begins in Labour’s farcical and disturbing selection process to choose a candidate for the directly elected mayor of Tower Hamlets election next month.

Party members are actually frantic and desperate to avoid Tower Hamlets Labour being tagged a Militant-style basket case. Here’s some news: it already is.

In these last, final hours of tragi-comedy, the phone calls are increasing from activists wanting to know whether anything is happening. Well, I haven’t got anything to say at the moment. Andrew Gilligan has, though, over at his Telegraph blog.

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Well, just when you thought it was safe to walk the streets of Tower Hamlets, the gutter stench of local politics hits you smack in the nose again (er, no jokes, please…). It’s now four days until Labour’s grand day when they will vote for their candidate, then unite behind him or her and say what a wonderfully “rigorous” contest it was. “This truly was democracy at it’s best,” they’ll say. I suppose we could start a start a spot betting contest on the number of times the phrase “time to unite” is uttered.

As the contest enters its last (scheduled) days, members of the various camps have been asking me for my prediction of the result. I haven’t a clue. Lutfur Rahman’s people say they think he’ll just about get through: they say the way the party omitted him from the original shortlist played into his hands and gave him victim status. They say he’s been portraying himself as the champion of the oppressed against the machine.

Supporters of John Biggs think Lutfur might get the most first round votes, but he’ll struggle to attract many second preferences. That’s where John will come into his own, they say. There are others within John’s camp who point out the reason their man has not been getting (apparently) a huge response on the doorstep is that many party members have been “away on holiday” in August. Which sounds a bit desperate, if so.

Helal Abbas, meanwhile, while earning the respect of senior council officers and even political opponents for the way he has led the council since May, does not appear to have a mass following. “He’s been squeezed out,” as one party member put it. However, I would not rule him out just yet and there is a chance he could have a major part to play after Saturday.

And then, last but not least of the major contenders, there is Michael Keith. Thrice rejected by parts of the Tower Hamlets electorate (in two council elections and one by-election), he remains a dominant figure and has a very strong network among the local party membership. And that could be crucial. He could well earn a significant number of first round and second preference votes. He’s almost permanently pessimistic about his electoral fortunes is our Michael, so when he downplays his chances, don’t believe him.

Amid all this, there is even talk of the national or regional Labour party voiding Saturday’s result and imposing their preferred choice if the “wrong man” wins (read Lutfur).

Whatever, it has been the ugliest contest I’ve witnessed in Tower Hamlets. An email sent round on a party distribution list tonight was an exercise in smear from the top-drawer. Sent in the form of a fake CV, it was sent by someone who clearly doesn’t like John Biggs. It contains so many libels that I’m prevented from printing hardly any of it. Except this little gem, which is under the heading, ‘Recent Political Manoeuvrings’:

·        Has drafted in right wing Sunday Express journalist and Labour Party nemesis Ted Jeory to provide media cover.

I deny it all!

Actually, the more I think about it, maybe this borough is crying out for an award-winning journalist to run as an independent. Who? See here.

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