Trial by Jeory

The Evening Standard’s Ross Lydall reports here that Tower Hamlets council has started judicial review proceedings against Lord Coe and his team at LOCOG for their decision to re-route the Olympic marathon away from the borough in 2012.

The council’s “pre-action” letter can be viewed here. Chief executive Kevan Collins and legal head Isabella Freeman claim that the council has already invested “considerable money” into the concept of “High Street 2012”.

High Street 2012 is in fact the filthy main road that runs from Aldgate to Stratford, along Whitechapel Road, Mile End Road and Bow Road. When it was first coined a few years ago, the council announced they were going to rename the roads the Olympic Boulevard, something that not only triggered much mirth but also the ire of Jacques Rogge and his colleagues. The word “Olympic”, you see , is a fiercely protected copyright.

I’m not exactly sure what the council has spent money on, but I’ve not seen any evidence of those roads being spruced up. Did some cash go on consultants, I wonder? I’ll ask.

However, given that the Games organisers had sucked out so much PR value from telling everyone how great they were for staging the marathon through the deprived East End, the council is absolutely right to challenge them.

Seb Coe’s decision, and particularly the reasons for it – that there were logistical problems associated with people running through Tower Hamlets (listen, Seb, that’s what we all do here!) – was a disgrace.

I’ve had some experience of Isabella Freeman: Seb Coe might well lose this one.

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Nothing really happened while I was away last week did it?

Oh, just the small matter of Lutfur Rahman being formally appointed mayor, then complaining his former Labour colleagues were playing politics by cutting his pay packet from £75,000 a year to a mere £65,000. Playing politics? Shurely shome mishtake. Lutfur himself would never ever do any such thing, would he…

But what’s this? In June, a month after he was ousted as council leader by Helal Abbas and well before the shambles of the Labour selection process, he proposed a formal motion to his fellow councillors at the town hall. For ease of reading, I’m copying his letter and motion again here:

Dear colleague

As you will have seen from the agenda for Monday’s Labour Group meeting, I am bringing a motion introducing term limits on any Labour directly-elected Mayor and reducing the Special Responsibility Allowance for that post and other Cabinet positions.

This motion is itself fairly self-explanatory, but i will explain my reasoning in a little more detail on Monday.  I would obviously welcome your support for this motion, so please don’t hesitate to let me know if you any queries before then.

Yours

Lutfur

Motion – Directly-Elected Mayor

Proposed:            Cllr Lutfur Rahman

Seconded:            Cllr Marc Francis

This Labour Group notes:

• The referendum result in support of a Directly-Elected Mayor and the election for this position will be held on 21^st October;
• That in other local authorities the introduction of an Executive Mayor in place of the Council Leader has resulted in an increase in the Special Responsibility Allowance (SRA) for that position;
• That, as well as an Executive Mayor, Newham has 16 Cabinet Members and Mayoral Advisers, each in receipt of an SRA;
• That some directly-elected Mayors are now beginning their third consecutive Term of Office;
• The new Conservative / Lib Dem Coalition Government is expected to require around £10 million in “in-year” cuts from the London Borough of Tower Hamlets, as well as significant additional savings thereafter.

This Labour Group believes:

• That it is important for the Labour Party and its elected representatives to take on the burden of any necessary savings before considering imposing cuts in frontline services;
• A Mayor, Deputy Mayor and eight Cabinet members is a sufficient Executive body for the London Borough of Tower Hamlets;
• George Washington and Thomas Jefferson had it right in establishing the convention of a two-term limit for the President of the United States, now enshrined in law by the 22^nd Amendment.

This Labour Group therefore resolves:

• To peg the SRA of the Directly-Elected Mayor for 2010/11 and 2011/12 at the current level of the SRA to the Council Leader less 5 per cent;
• To peg the SRA for the Deputy Mayor for 2010/11 and 2011/12 at the current level of the SRA to the Deputy Leader less 5 per cent;
• To peg the SRA for Cabinet Members for 2010/11 and 2011/12 at the current level of the SRA to Cabinet Members less 5 per cent;
• To require that the Mayor appoint no more than one Deputy Mayor and eight Cabinet Members to serve on the Executive;
• That no Labour Mayor should seek a 3^rd Term of Office.

Yes, that’s right, he was telling his colleagues that the newly elected Mayor should be paid 5 per cent less than the allowance for the then leader of the council, Helal Abbas, ie about £30,000. This was, of course, all in the interests of setting an example and saving taxpayers a bit of money – and nothing to do with playing politics to make himself look good – of course. I suspect that the rest of his colleagues who voted to reject the motion now regret they did so.

But cost-cutting is indeed now the name of the game. Following the Government’s comprehensive spending review, Tower Hamlets council is having to find tens of millions of pounds of savings. Lutfur himself recognises this. His mantra during the election campaign was that he would fight those cuts with all his heart.

Er, so what do you think his first edict was as newly elected Mayor? To order a brand new iPhone 4. Apparently his existing tax-funded Blackberry wasn’t good enough. According to a town hall mole, when Lutfur was told he would have to wait a week for his new Apple gadget, he threw his toys out of the pram and told council chief executive Kevan Collins to secure him one within 24 hours. Council officials were then ordered to leg it over to the Apple store in Covent Garden and shell out more than £500 of our money.

Not to be outdone, Deputy Mayor Ohid Ahmed also cried out for one. So that’s £1,000 (one council tax bill) of dodgy spending they’ve already racked up. Wonder if there’ll be any more….

PS…I’d typed up this post yesterday morning and was waiting for the council’s press office to confirm the iPhone orders before publishing. Almost 24 hours later, I’ve just received the response. “We aren’t going to be issuing any information about phones for members,” a spokeswoman said. Now, this is interesting. A few years ago, the council sent me a list of councillors who had been issued laptops and Blackberrys. So I wonder who’s ordered the change of policy? Silly people: as of January 1, the council will have to comply with Eric Pickles’s transparency edict and publish online all items of expenditure of more than £500. Seems like the iPhone 4 issue is the first sign of mild panic by Lutfur & co in the face of media scrutiny.

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A number of councillors and former councillors were sent the following email this morning:

Dear Sir,

It is unacceptable that the Labour and Tory party are refusing to work with the new democratic elected mayor of Tower Hamlet!

Either they accept the Democratic Process and listen to wishes of of the voters and work with new Mayor or All the Labour and Tory Councillors should resign and let the people of Tower Hamlets decide whether they want these Traitors who refuse to accept the democratic process and will of the people,  be elected again!

Dara Miah
A Concerned Citizen!

Dear old Dara seems to think Lutfur should be the Great Dictator. But his email does raise a couple of interesting points. As I reported in this post, Lutfur’s business backer Shiraj Haque has been trying to persuade opposition councillors to accept roles within the new administration. The sole Lib Dem councillor Stephanie Eaton has indicated she will decline a cabinet position and tomorrow night, Tory members will decide whether to take up an offer made to Peter Golds. Quite what that offer is, not even Peter seems sure. However, I understand that it too will be rejected. It does appear very likely that the “people of Tower Hamlets” will be governed by one of the weakest line-ups in the borough’s history.

The second point raised by our Concerned Citizen is not only how the “will of the people” at the forthcoming by-election in Spitalfields and Banglatown. As yet, the required two letters from residents of that ward requesting a by-election have not arrived at the town hall. If they’re received this week, the election will be on December 9, otherwise it will be December 16. As for the candidates, none of the parties have decided who will stand. As it is Lutfur’s former ward (he had to stand down as councillor once he was elected mayor), he will have a major influence over who wins.

So does he try to ingratiate himself with his former party and back the Labour candidate, who will take the party whip and oppose him, or support the person to be put up by Respect (they’re meeting tomorrow night to decide if they will run and if so, who), or, even more intriguingly, does he encourage an “independent” to stand?

What do you think he should do?

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