Here’s some more detail on last night’s hustings. First off, unless someone drops a real clanger, I don’t think these events will have any effect on the outcome of the election on October 21. The audiences are relatively small and, for the most part, packed with supporters of particularly camps. Most voters won’t hear anything about them at all.
However, they do provide useful insights and they are opportunities for candidates to stick in the knife and produce wider media coverage.
With that in mind, last night we learnt that the Tories, the Greens and the Lib Dems would scrap East End Life in its current format, while both Abbas and Lutfur took the Labour line that the news-sheet played an important function, but that savings could be found.
There were two questions in particular that whipped up both the platform and the audience. The first came from someone wanting to know how much Lutfur’s decision to force out former council chief executive Martin Smith had cost taxpayers.
Disingenuously, Lutfur denied Martin had actually been forced out. He said: “It was a mutual agreement. It was not the first time a chief executive has moved on. It has happened before in this council and across the country. It was a mutual agreement and when there’s a mutual agreement you can have a financial settlement – go and check the law.”
As well as producing guffaws from the audience it also spurred Abbas into action. He said: “As people who hold public office, it’s important that we respect the integrity of everyone. I’ve seen officers come and go in my time, but no officer in my time left with a golden handshake.”
Tory Neil King went further, describing the Lutfur-led appointment of former assistant chief executive Lutfur Ali, who then moonlighted doing other work while at the town hall, as “extraordinary”. [Cllr Ohid Ahmed, who sat in front of me and who was on the panel that appointed Ali (who is now helping Lutfura Rahman’s campaign), heckled rather loudly at that one.] King added: “If I’m elected mayor, I’ll have no favours to pay back to anyone.”
Lib Dem John Griffiths said he was the “anti-mayor mayoral candidate” and added: “I’m very wary about this mayoralty falling into the wrong hands.”
The final question was asked by a young Lutfur supporter who demanded to know why people who had been against the change of council system were now standing to become mayor. I didn’t get the logic of this (is he trying to say that if the Tories lose the AV referendum next year that they should refuse to participate in the next General Election?). However, it was clearly directed at Abbas, who said he had been against changing the system and, for the first time showing some fire in his belly, added: “The Yes campaign was funded corruptly. It was funded by business interests.” [Ohid bawled out loud at this as well.]
Neil King said: “Now that the system is here, I’m determined to try and make it work. There seems to be a man running who is doing it for his own ego and very little else.”
John Griffiths moved the question on and pointing angrily at Abbas said: “If you believe in democracy, why are you here and not John Biggs.” Lutfur’s supporters loved that. “He’s looking for our second vote,” one said.
Those were some of the words. Here are some of my other observations. The event was due to start at 7pm, but did not in fact get underway until just after 7.30pm, at which time Lutfur had failed to arrive. he had been at a Youth Conference meeting in Bethnal Green and he arrived at 7.40pm just as Abbas was talking. Instead of waiting for his opponent to finish, he distracted the audience’s already struggling ears by striding to the platform to take his seat.
To compound the problems for the audience, about 200 of his supporters then arrived in groups over the next half hour. What was fascinating was their age. He does seem to have galvanised an element of the Tower Hamlets youth, many of whom seem to see their man as some sort of Yes We Can Obama figure.
This could be dangerous for Labour and Abbas. They will have to rely on a core vote who do not bother attending hustings like last night.
Trial by Jeory 
if there is evidence that the yes campaign has been funded by business interest there should be a police investigation.
I was taking voter numbers outside Olga polling station at the May elections with a young man who said he was being paid by a local restauranteur to hand out yes leaflets.
Wake up Jane or whoever you are? That election is long gone, It’s now the Mayoral elections. Why did you not post this 3months ago or Is that another last minute Abbas style dossier?
“This could be dangerous for Labour and Abbas. They will have to rely on a core vote who do not bother attending hustings like last night.”
Says it all in regards to your biased articles. The fact the Lutfur has large numbers of young people supporting him is a testamount to the public view of Lutfur and Abbas. It sad to see you are so biased in your writing and lean towards Abbas! I wonder when you will have time to air the positive views about Lutfur and the negative views about Abbas.
Something interesting…
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Helal Abbas (AKA Abbas Uddin), while he was the Council Leader, even though he was a Bengali with English language support needs himself, systematically destroyed the many nationally and internationally recognized bilingual educational projects in Tower Hamlets. These projects resulted in raising pupils achievement levels across the borough. Helal Abbas did this because he was told to do so by the shadowy right wing ‘neocon’ political masters that control him.
Countries like Norway, Sweden, USA, South Africa, India and Bangladesh frequently visited these projects.
While Ministers and leading academic institutions in the UK and overseas countries recognized the importance of these projects, Helal Abbas decided to abolish these critical services.
The people of Tower will need to know that one of the services cut by Helal Abbas was the Bilingual Instructors Scheme. This was seen as a national flagship project enabling local people to engage with mainstream teaching as acclaimed by the then Education Advisor to the Prime Minister, Prof. Tim Brigghouse.
Based on the success of Tower Hamlets’ Bilingual Instructorship, the previous Labour Government started a process of recruiting 800000 Classroom Assistants in the country. However, at the same time secretly, Helal Abbas was plotting the destruction of this highly acclaimed Bilingual Instructor scheme. There was no consultation.
We had no place to go or complain to.
Helal Abbas went on to completely decimate the entire Bilingualism and Bilingual Support Services. This was the same service which was one of the first services in country that published the first Religious Education Policy/Syllabus for Headteachers/Schools.
The tradition and legacy of successfully training community teachers for mainstream teaching through the Articled/Licensed Teaching Scheme or the GTP/RTP Scheme was deliberately put to a halt.
Tower Hamlets was seen as a role model in tackling behaviour, discipline, exclusion, attendance, punctuality, extended leave etc. Many bilingual mainstream subject teachers (ie of Maths, IT, Science, MFL) used to hold the Home-School liaison posts in our secondary schools.
The central fund for this Home School liaison was dismantled and dissolved.
The human cost not just such in educational attainment for young people but also in terms of those that lost their jobs was devastating. Some could not take the stress and died prematurely, many underwent serious psychological disorder.
Here is an outline of that carnage of redundancies:
52 Bengali and Somali Instructors and 25 NNEBs in mainstream classrooms.
13 pre-NNEBs who received National Diploma in Nursery Nursing
32 bilingual instructors and Secondary Classroom Assistants who received Qualified Teaching Status in Tower Hamlets’ Primary and Secondary Schools
Helal Abbas’s path of destruction did not just stop there. This person went on to cut:
The highly acclaimed translation and Interpretation Service. A service which was copied by many including the current day Language Shop in Newham. The service produced and supported teachers to produce wide-ranging resources including books.
Books and resources produced by experienced teachers from 10/12 years’ of their sheer after-school hard work were allowed to be destroyed in mud and rain in the open courtyard of Tower Hamlets’ Professional Development Centre.
The central funding for Modern Foreign Language in Secondary Schools dismantled.
In the early 2000 when the labour Education Minister Catherine Ashton set out that ‘Every primary pupil, aged between 7 and 11, will have the opportunity to study atleast one foreign language by the end of the decade’. Yet Helal Abbas as a Bengali leader with his strings being pulled by his masters, dismantled the very Bilingual Support Service which was perfectly placed to deliver this very critical service –
a direct betrayal of Labour’s own National Language Strategy (NLS).
Dr. Hasanat Husain MBE (dr.hasanathusain@yahoo.co.uk)
Former Head of Bilingualism and Bilingual Support Services,
Directorate of Education, London Borough of Tower Hamlets
……………………………………………………….
Preamble :
Tower Hamlets’ Bilingual Support Service
was acclaimed Nationally and Internationally for its contribution to Primary and Secondary Education (for BME children and the new arrivals from EU).
It had its initial Section11/Home Office + SRB budget of
£11.9 million with 487 FTE posts.
The highly successful service was dissolved, teachers made renundant, its dedicated team of Officers, Inspectors, Cordinators all of whom were nationally known academics, made renundant.
“Hellal Abbas….. …the shadowy right-wing “neo-con” political forces that control him.
WTF! Excuse me while I fall off my chair gasping in disbelief and hilarity. Ted, you may well have a scoop here “Labour Mayoral candidate – pawn of the Illuminati”
Perhaps you should also point out in your Preamble;
1. You were unsuccessful in your bid to become the Labour party parliamentary candidate for Bethnal Green and Bow.
2. You were unsuccessful in then becoming the Parliamentary candidate for Bethnal Green and Bow for the Respect party where you only managed to obtain 2 votes, which is really 1 vote excluding your own vote!
3. Which party do you now belong to, if any?
Shahed, I hear you are also treated like reject in the Labour party! LOL.
So which party do you really belong to? Will you be changing your skin like a chameoleon if Lutfur, Tories or LibDem win?
If the service was so good, why are the results of Bangladeshi boys so poor?
Interesting Ted highlights Martin Smith being “forced out”, but forgets to mention that they then hire the current Chief Exec. Kevan Collins who is still in his job and is well liked by the staff and community. In fact, from what I remember Kevan Collins has worked in the borough as a teacher in his previous job and grately understands the needs of Tower Hamlets. Maybe something Martin Smith lacked and this led to his own departure as he realised he was not able to cope with the demands?
Also those who winge constantely about Islamists Supremacists rubbish should remember Kevan Collins is openly homosexual and that hasn’t stopped Lutfur Rahman from employing him. So a bit of a kick up the back side I guess for those who believe Lutfur Rahman is an extreme Islamists of some sort (though they wished he was!). Propaganda and lies will never win through.
Ted is back, that’s the Ted we like.
Did anyone see the BBC London news report on the Tower Hamlets mayoral campaigns, earlier this evening? Did put notice of this on Ted’s blog before it came on the tv – but Ted deleted it.
Anyway, it seems to have been filmed at the TELCO hustings and the report went into how Lutfur was ejected from the Labour Party by the last-minute ‘dossier’ – of which the BBC had a copy. Also contained an interview with Abbas on the matter.
#3 is very interesting. The history of bilingualism, language support for mother tongue and also ESOL provision in the borough is worth knowing more about.
Unfortunately the bit about “the shadowy right wing ‘neocon’ political masters that control him [Abbas] ” makes me distrust the source of this information.
Source is correct. I received a copy too. Dr. Hasanat can go a bit overboard but he is a respected person in the Bangladeshi community and his comments are clear. All people have to do is do an FOI into the council for information.
Sorry Dr Hasnath. Abbas the than leader was innovative enough to maybe cut those service and build the acclaimed Idea stores, which has helped the community in numerous ways. Also many of the language and interpreting services were not required anymore as they had become outdated, as a lot of people could speak for themselves at that time. He had the right idea as the education standards of the borough went up as well.
The rest of your jealous essay isn’t worth commenting on, there is only one string being pulled in the community that is from Shiraz Hoque, Owner of Clifton group, who wants to take the Bengali Mela Contract back, as the council took it off him [CONTENT REMOVED FOR LEGAL REASONS]
And you think none of Abbas’ associates have/want their fingers in the Mela pie?
I don’t care much for millionaires like Shiraz Hoque. But I care less for right-wing self-hating New Labour politicians like Abbas who pretend to be there for the benefit of the community but only seek to serve themselves and their friends.
Shahed Ali is that you again using another fake name. When are you going to learn!
No, I’m not Shahed Ali. I can’t stand that turncoat.
I’m confused. Who’s side are you on in this?
If someone say’s something anti-Lutfur, they’re accused of being Shahed Ali.
If someone say’s something anti-Abbas (as I did), they’re accused of being Shahed Ali.
Are you on a parallel plane of existance where we are all Shahed Ali?
This wins the TBJ prize for the funniest comment of the week.
Trialbyjeory, you are Shahed Ali and I claim by five pounds.
Sorry, I know my last post was REALLY long, so I’ll keep this one short & sweet.
TED, JUST ONE MORE THING (Columbo style): I’ve just read an interesting comment where someone alleges that Helal Abbas said in a TV interview:
“We do not come to this this country with African culture, we know how to behave”
Being the fair & impartial journalist that you are, could you please look into the validity of this assertion (can anyone help Ted out with a link please? I’d also like to see if it’s true or another dirty politics trick) and then create a new post entitled “Even more racist abuse in Tower Hamlets” as a follow-on from another of your posts? Pretty please?
Ted, I’ll save you some work. I’ve found the video link (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sj71U67pqAo&feature=related%20%284mns%2040%20sec%29) and the alleged comment is made at around 4 mins 45 seconds.
However, in Abbas’ defence, he doesn’t say:
“We do not come to this this country with African culture, we know how to behave”
From what I could understand, he says that we shouldn’t bring the dirty politics of developing nations such as Bangladesh and Africa to Britain.
I agree with his sentiments whole-heartedly.
Shame that he’s the main instigator of the dirty politics….
well anon1, No I dont think Abbas’s associated want anything to do with the mela. its the Puppet master Shiraz hoque who is the orchestrator of the independent campaign, we will have a situation where the New Mayor might have to go to Clifton group basements to make decisions regards council policy.
I can see TH COuncil falling under Government Special Measure if the independent councillor becomes a mayor, it will be disastrous
Mr Ahmed is former RESPECT councillor Shahed Ali.
Dear Shahed Ali, please bear with us for a few more days before we reveal your dossier in the public domain. We will let the public decide if you are fit to be a councillor.
Yeah, anyone who speaks up against Lutfur is Councillor Shahed Ali, in that case you must be Cllr Shelena, rumours are your very close with Mr Sheraz Hoque, as we saw in the channel S news clip.
Sorry I am not leaving my genuine email address as I trust no one. I work in Development and Renewal at LBTH.
Kevan Collins fails to publish a staff survey carried out in October 2009. Why? Because it slammed management. Is this transparency? Just ask him for the staff survey results which were conducted by an independent company.
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