I’m on holiday at the moment but Google has kindly sent me this story from the East London Advertiser.
Another test for Labour? Do please let me know who the likely runners will be. Presumabl, the by-election will be on May 3, the same day as the City Hall election. Again, I wonder whether Lutfur will field a candidate and, if so, will Ken come to campaign…
A Tower Hamlets Labour councillor has resigned today blaming it on the Tory government’s NHS cuts.
Weavers councillor Anna Lynch, who worked as a nurse at the London Chest Hospital in Bethnal Green, said she is having to move to Somerset for work.
A by-election for her seat will be held on May 3 coinciding with the London Mayoral election.
Cllr Lynch said: “It is with sadness that today I resigned as a councillor representing Weavers ward. I work in the NHS and as a result of the Tory-led government’s cuts, I have had to move out of London for work, making it impossible to continue to keep my commitment to represent those that elected me.
“It’s been a difficult decision because I love living here and I love representing Weavers. “I’m proud of the work I’ve done with residents and my ward colleague Cllr Abdul Mukit over the past two years, including getting the council and police to take anti-social behaviour more seriously in the ward, campaigning against the problems caused by the growing night-time economy locally and stopping the independent Tower Hamlets Mayor from closing Rushmead One Stop Shop.”
It is understood the Labour Group will shortly select a new candidate to fight the by-election her resignation causes.
Leader of the Labour Group Joshua Peck said: “I’m very sad Anna has had to resign as she has served Weavers ward well but I wish her well in her new job.”
“We will fight hard to elect a new Labour councillor to stand up for Weavers residents”.
Another Tower Hamlets by-election will be held for Spitalfields and Banglatown ward on April 19 after disgraced independent benefit fraud councillor Shelina Akhtar was barred from office.
Trial by Jeory 
Tower Hamlets is a multi-ethnic place but any observer would think only one community – the Bengali community – mattered.
According to Tower Hamlet’s own website:
“Over half of Tower Hamlets’ population are from non-white British ethnic groups. A third of these are Bangladeshi, of whom over a third are 15 years or less old.”
Source: http://www.towerhamlets.gov.uk/lgsl/901-950/916_borough_statistics/ethnicity.aspx
Remember that figure – as of 2001 (the last available census material – 2011 is not available until July 2012) – only one THIRD of the population are Bengali.
But yet the Bengali people in this borough are grossly over represented at the detriment of everyone else, who I would say, are forgotten and perhaps even deliberately and systematically discriminated against.
At the moment, the Executive Mayor is Bengali and so is also the Deputy Mayor as well as the Speaker. Also, ALL of the mayor’s ‘cabinet’ are Bengali.
Of the 51 councillors at Tower Hamlets 28 are Bengali (have Bengali names) and only 21 are not Bengali (plus two vacancies). This means 55% of the councillors are Bengali when the census says they make up just 33% of the population of the borough. Why this over-representation?
Most of the sitting councillors have been selected by Labour so I must ask WHY are non-Bengali people being institutionally discriminated against by Tower Hamlets Labour? Is Labour institutionally discriminatory towards anyone who is not from the Bengali community?
According to the 2001 Census (the only material available), just 37% of the population of Weavers Ward in LBTH are Bengali but yet two of the three councillors (66%) representing this area are Bengali.
Source: http://www.towerhamlets.gov.uk/idoc.ashx?docid=9c18a999-87ad-467d-af5a-b7062700a241&version=-1
I therefore say to Labour that when you are considering your options for replacing Anna Lynch that you widen your selection criteria and select a candidate who is not from the Bengali community and end the obvious and systematic discrimination maintained by your party against all the other people in this borough.
One wonders who wrote the Tower Hamlets’ web site on Ethnicity that you refer to. English grammatical construction isn’t their strong point as in the recurring split infinitives: ‘15 years or less old’, and ‘Bangladeshies (their spelling) by far are the largest..’
Moving on, instead of relying on the Office for National Statistics (ONS) 2006 population estimates, why haven’t Tower Hamlets updated this page with more current data they paid for? In 2009 Mayhew Harper Associates Ltd was commissioned jointly by the London Borough of Tower Hamlets and Tower Hamlets PCT to create a database of the Tower Hamlets population. This finds that Tower Hamlets had a confirmed minimum population of 234,828 persons at 30th September 2009 living in over 100,995 households.
It states that of the 11 ethnic groups within the borough, the Bangladeshi population is in the majority, with 75,401 people, closely followed by the White British/Irish population of 64,284 people. Of the 61,772 children and young people aged 0-19, more than half of these children are Bangladeshi, a very large majority compared to the next largest group of 9,072 White British/Irish children. Bangladeshi children account for 55.2% of all children in the borough. The detrimental effect of this surge on our schools has been well documented elsewhere. And by this I mean the challenge it has posed to balanced and well managed cultural integration.
In total 43% of the local population live in income deprived households, i.e., households receiving benefits. Of the 11 categories listed, Bangladeshis have by far the highest level of income deprivation at a staggering 73.2%, closely followed by Somalis at 72.5% although they account for only 2% of the population. Levels then drop to around 35% for other Asian subcontinent, Black African, mixed and Black Other groups. The East European and non identifiable population are least income deprived at 19.7% and 18.2% respectively. 29.5% of the White British/Irish population are income deprived.
By understanding the demographics we can more capably administer integration but this will entail fundamental changes to the regime we have in place currently.
Grenville – I don’t understand your figures. If there is a ‘minimum population’ of 234,828 then how can the Bangladeshi/Bengali population be “in the majority” if they have only 75,401?
75k is only 32% of 234k – roughly speaking the same as in the LBTH figures.
By majority do you mean a “simple majority” – as in they are the largest single community rather than “absolute majority” which means they constitute more than 50% of the population?
If so – at 32% of the population they are still over-represented by having 55% of the seats and all the important jobs (Mayor, Deputy Mayor, Speaker, Chief Exec, and ALL the cabinet members)
So let’s look at how this whole thing came about…
The referendum petition:
According to Andrew Gilligan: “in the more than 17,000 signatures on that petition, I counted just 130 non-Asian names. That’s in a borough where 60 percent of the people are non-Asian.”
Is that racist? or was it only the Bangladeshi community that wanted the directly elected mayor? Did the organisers racistly decide not to ask anyone from the other community or did NOBODY from the other community support the idea?
I wonder if a referendum petition supported by 99% white people would be approved by the council… it makes you wonder.
So 40% of 17,000 were “invalid” but Lutfur’s council decided the remaining 60% of 17,000 or 10,200 signatures were “enough” – so 10,000 people all from one community decided we needed to have this autocracy imposed on is – that is just 4% of the borough population and good news in a way because we now how many signatures are needed to overturn this elective dictatorship. And we can get them any time between now and November 2014.
I am no vilifying a community. I am just highlighting the fact a community who are still only 32% of the population of this borough currently take ALL the top jobs and a greater share of representatives than is fair.
Would it be right for an entirely white borough administration representing 60% of the borough population to be imposed on a 32% Asian minority? No it wouldn’t – SO why should it be okay the other way around?
This over-representation is probably the fault of Labour who instinctively choose brown over white, gay over straight – it is like they have something lurking in their ideological closet they keep trying to disprove… and it seems to me that the bar to getting on the list of Labour Party prospective councillors in LBTH is far lower if you are Bengali than if you are White and even lower if you are female and Bengali – then you tick all the boxes and they will select you without having even met you.
This lower-bar hypothesis might help explain why so many Bengali Labour councillors have changed party allegiance so many times while this is not the case among the non-Bengali candidates who have had to work so much harder and for so much longer to get where they are.
Unfortunately anyone who dares discuss this subject is immediately and quite predictably declared to be Himmler incarnate. You can think what you like – I am championing the interests of my community and this needs to be done much more often.
James
Maybe I’m old fashioned but I’d rather the party selected our candidate based on their merits rather than their skin colour.
Me too… clearly the merits of Shelina Akhtar won through…
The vast majority of non-Bangladeshi Tower Hamlets electors do not vote in local elections, and have no involvement in any political or community activity. They have expressed no views on the policies they would like the mayor or the local authority to implement, or how they are represented. It is not surprising that their views and interests are ignored – they deserve no better. It is about time the public realised that democracy is a precious commodity. If they don’t use it, they will lose it. There is no point blaming the Bengali community. They have worked to achieve what they see as their interests. it is not their fault that others can’t be bothered.
@ James F: a hearty welcome to your life as an ethnic minority. It must be really boring playing poker with you, every card you play is the race card. The irony is that there is no shortage of legitimate critique that you could levy against the Mayor and local politics in general yet you insist on standing on the margins monologuing.
Yeah James – instead of moaning about us Bengali’s, who you had no problem ‘volunteering’ for in regards to a Bengali owned paper, then suddenly realising you were working for the ‘enemy’ and leaving as you say, if more of the non-Bengali voters came out and voted, maybe things would have been different…. along with Labour not making a monumnetal f**k up with all that selection debarcle in 2010.
You cant blame some Bengali’s on Lutfur’s side taking advantage of the above… every ethnicity in the political world will use what they could, legally to win.
You sure you left of your own accord from that ‘volunteering’ post…. as you show blatant signs of villifying a whole community with some sort of resentment that comes about when you have treated badly by an individual/company!
On that note, just saw Shelina at the local gym today…. How long did she serve?
Does anyone know the potential runners for Weavers?
It’s a shame that this has turned into a debate about one of James’ bizarre racist rants, but can I wish Anna all the very best in her new career, she’s a great loss to Tower Hamlets politics, and a great loss to the NHS in the East End.
Maybe James could have a look at the names of all of the candidates nominated by Labour in the 2010 local elections. The selection process was far from perfect, but it tried to reflect the make-up of the electorate.
On the subject of equality, one-third of Labour councillors elected in LBTH in 2010 were women – this puts all of the other parties to shame – with the obvious exeception of the sole Lib Dem!
Labour is also the only party in the council chmaber that represents a cross section of the community. All of the Tories and the Lib Dem are white.The Mayor and his independent / Respect followers are all Bangladshi. The only point I’m trying to make here is that Labour is quite a way from only representing one section of our community as James suggests.
For once I completely agree with Steve O’Driscoll. Though I can’t find his name on the party membership list. Strange that.
I am not a Tory (very far from, in fact) but in their defence they did have a Bengali councillor who defected to Lutfur – it was covered on this blog last year.
One thing I always found totally bizarre while I was “on the inside” is the Harriet Harman style women-only drama the Labour Party puts itself through. While I was there, time and again a vacancy would occur and several people would put themselves forward (and I don’t mean me) who were capable and motivated to fill whatever position it was but were told – “no” – this is a “women-only” list. The office would then remain unfilled until a woman – literally any woman at all – applied, or was often the case – her father applied for her. These reluctant women officers would have no idea at all what they were supposed to be doing and would then fail to attend and nothing would happen but at least everything was PC. It seems plain to me that the selection of people like Shelina Akhtar was the end-result of this excruciatingly politically-correct dogmatism.
Graham – be honest with us – why did Labour select Shelina Ahtar? What were her outstanding qualities which put her above the other candidates? Who else was short-listed by Labour to run for that seat?
Greville, have you ever heard the ironic saying “A preposition is not a word you should end a sentence with”? It is particularly appropriate when you criticise the grammar of others.
James – the Chief Exec is not Bengali. Where do you get your information from?
He’s from Africa – an Indian from Kenya or Uganda, I think, and got kicked out by Idi Amin
…Graham Taylor cannot talk. Look at the disaster THLP is now… it is a party whose only purposeappears to be limp wristed opposition to IFE/Respect and they have long since lost any socialist principles (Graham voting against Academy Schools in principle as THLP Chairman while at the same time as a College Governor steering his college towards Academy Status is a case in point).
If it wasn’t for Labour in TH totally abandoning its original constituency (and by this I mean the cosmopolitan mix of communities London is famous for) and instead devoting all its efforts to winning purely Bengali voters (many of whom were only using Labour as a vehicle to obtain power) they wouldn’t be in the shit they are in today. If Labour had not abandoned its core supporters because they were no longer fashionable they would still be winning here and perhaps more of the people who have since given up and migrated to Essex and the Costa Brava might still be living here.
Dismissing my concern about the complete concentration of power by one minority to the detriment of all others as “racist rants” is the easiest thing in the world to do. It means Labour can carry on avoiding even thinking about the epic problems they have created… and lo and behold the same thing suddenly happens in Bradford and nobody in Labour can understand why.
Labour have betrayed and abandoned their true support groups in favour of gambling the lot with a religiously motivated group masquerading as Labour supporters who as soon as the opportunity arises demonstrate they actually have no loyalty to Labour at all.
From Facebook:
Bill Turner
I understand people’s surprise that I have accepted Mayor Lutfur Rahman’s offer of the post of Deputy Mayor however I am sure with time people will understand. It’s a pity to leave the Labour Party after all these years but neared an upward.
It’s not an April Fool, that’s why we are doing an evening announcement. There’s a press conference at the Clifton tomorrow.
Ha Ha very funny David!
Of much more interest is the reason Michael Keith was turned down for the Weavers by-election in favour of John Pierce. Michael is now considered to be too critical of Josh and would be more pragmatic in relation to Lutfur.
John Pierce is known to be extremely hostile to Lutfur, has similar views to Graham Taylor and is the kind of Militant atheist that would make Richard Dworkins blush
I reckon Bill Turner has been “face raped” … as for John Pierce – he sounds like just the sort of guy the people of Weavers need.
I am reliably informed that John Pierce is a catholic and not an atheist! Al;though his thoughts on the Pope would be interesting
Crikey Stuart – were you on the selection panel?
The sort of views I share with John are social justice in a plural democracy and giving a voice to all sections of society. The sort of thing you’ve long abandoned and reverted to your revolutionary Leninist beliefs.
I also disagree with John on lots of things. But fortunately in the Labour party we’re tolerant of peoples differences, and I’ll be proud to be out campaigning for John in the next few weeks and hope you’ll joinn us Stuart – or will you be supporting Lutfur’s candidate?
James – ‘limp wristed’, what could you possibly mean by that?
Sounds to me like James has moved on from
racism to thinly-veiled homophobia, Graham
Graham your ignorant and slanderous comments do you no favours. On another blog Rachel has just been complaining about people telling lies. Now you start lieing about my beliefs.
For the record I have always opposed Respect – In Shadwell we won two out of three seats from them in 2010 only narrowly missing the third. We won not by aping their politics but standing up for the needs of local people.
I was fighting the ‘hard left’ over stock transfer when other people were still mouthing slogans about ‘Defending Council Housing’. Today THCH which helped to developis the best social landlord in the borough thanks in part to the structure of resident empowerment which I and others fought for. When I tried to get the party to take the issue of resident empowerment seriously in 2005 I was ignored by Michael Keith. The LA directors all Labour were thrown off the board because they did not attend meetings.
I have no idea of Lutfur will put up a candidate if he does I won’t support him for the same reason I didn’t support Robbani in Spitalfields. Having said that I stand by my view that the attitude of the Labiour Group to the mayor is poisonous and counterproductive. I don’t believe in opposition for oppositions sake.
For the record I think the Group ought to have a major rethink of its strategy. They should agree to constructive engagement with the Mayor. They should decide on what issues they can work with the Mayor and where they can’t.
Graham’s intemperate views about the Mayor are well known, views which I know that John shares. I am sick and tired of being told that Lutfur is an Islamist extremist. Look at the policies he has followed and where we were four or five years ago.
On Housing, Policing, Education and above all the budget he has dragged the left leaning Bengali cllrs onto the centre ground of British politics!!!!!!!!!!!
Yes he’s cut £100million and got the left to support those cuts. I think he deserves some credit for that.
Ted, the spat between Graham and Stuart Madwell of little interest. However, Stuarts assertion that Lutfur Rahman has dragged the left leaning Bengali Cllrs. into the centre of British politics is simply both proposterous and luaghable in equal measure.
Has Stuart forgotten that a couple months ago Lutfur was being celebrated by the left as one of the most influential lefty in the UK. Better still what exactly has Lutfur Rahman achieved that red arsed African baboon wouldn’t be able to if it were Mayor. As regards the apparent £100m cuts – whoever was Mayor or Leader would have had to make the cuts – because the funding to the Council was cut. So, please try to find something remotely credible that Lutfur has achieved as Mayor. He has done nothing – around Housing, Education, Social Care and all the other key services that would not have happened anyway.
Yes you can credit him with recruiting his IFE and other Ken Livingstones leftys as advisors and officers. His latest is Numan Ahmed as his political advisor another IFE big wig.
My apologies to all red arsed African Baboons I meant no disrespect – in fact I meant to say that you would do a far better job in running the Council than the current Mayor.
I have no idea if Lex is a pseudonym for a Labour Party member or not. I would sincerely hope that he was not a member of my party as his racist viewpoint is clear from his comments comparing the Mayor to an african baboons. However that is an example of the kind of abuse that passes for political comment in Tower Hamlets these days.
I would point out that whilst he has made cuts he has been able to do so without the dramatic cuts to front line services seen in other boroughs. He has also brought in a scheme to compensate for the loss of the EMA.
Having said that I think there are constructive criticism to be made of the Mayor. I think more could have been done to secure jobs on the Olympics for local people. I think the deal he did with Olympic organisers after we learnt the marathon wasn’t coming to the borough has proved to be one sided
Ted, what is it with the likes of Stuart Madwell any legitimate and substantive criticism of this inept and wasteful Mayor is now confined to racism.
I don’t whether this guy Stuart is black or white or whether he has ever experienced racism – but take it from me this guy Lutfur Rahman epitomises the notion of left wing facism. He veils his true natural bigotry and hatred for white people, Jews and even Muslims who do not adhere to his brand of extremist Islam.
How can Stuart in one breath claim to be a Labour party member and on the other defend this Lutfur Rahman who has damaged the Labour movement in Tower Hamlets.
I have no idea who Lex is what his politics are. I doubt very much that he is a Labour party member, but is probably a Tory troll or more likely an EDL supporter.
His use of terms like ‘left-wing fascism’ which I believe is a meaningless phrase to hide his personal inadequacies.
I’d recommend a long course of anger management therapy
Oh, I think he or she is far too knowledgable about the town hall rumour mill to be an EDL troll.
[…] Just a quick update on Tower Hamlets’ Weavers ward by-election which will be held on May 3 and which comes following the resignation, for personal reasons, of Labour’s Anna Lynch. […]
Dear oh dear! I despair at the likes of Stuart if that is his real name. His blind and utterly unqualified support for Lutfur Rahman sounds like he so beholden to Lutfur Rahman that either Lutfur has him by the proverbial ‘dogs danglers’ and or Stuart has financial interests with Lutfur Rahman. Stuarts lack of all common sense and an inability to distinguish between right and wrong – the lawful and the unlawful increasingly sounds like Stuart might be Alibor Choudhry or Sajid Miah. While you would expect this kind of behavior from Alibor with his controversial background in Stepney it is not something that one would expect from Sajid – a city trained lawyer with a bright future ahead of him. But I still have hope that people like Stuart/ Alibor will see the folly of their actions and dis-engage from this Mayor.
Stuart need not doubt any longer about my politics – I am a Labour Party member and have had the privilege of working with authentic Labour leaders like the late Peter Shore, Neil Kinnock, Gordon Brown, Rushanara Ali etc… so I need not display my balanced socialist democratic centre politics to the likes of Madwell or any of Lutfur’s lackey proxies.
While the condition of the Labour Party both nationally and in Tower Hamlets is a matter of serious concern – it is a catastrophe of biblical proportions that we (the Labour Party, the People of Tower Hamlets and media) have allowed the creation of Lutfur Rahman. We must all take responsibility and recognize the conditions we created that led to this monstrous outcome.
The likes of Stuart/ Alibor need to stop playing the race/ religion card every time that evidence based criticism is directed at Lutfur Rahman. They do not need to stoop so low – true success and achievement through genuine honest effort is much more sustainable and will win most decent hardworking peoples hearts and minds – across the ethnic, religious and social status boundaries. For the future of Tower Hamlets we so desperately need the voices of reason to speak out for all of the people and not just a few.
I will not speak for Alibor as he is capable of speaking for himself. I am neither his cheerleader nor his lickspittle. However because Lex thinks that Lutfur Rahman is such an unmitigated disaster I will explain in calm terms why I think he is wrong.
As is well known I am the branch secretary in Shadwell. Alibor and Rabina were candidates chosen not be local members but by the regional party to stand in this ward in 2010 at the local elections. Because Michael Keith had lost the by-election to Respect the Regional party thought we were an unwinnable ward. Alibor had previously represented St. Dunstans but Regional arbitrarily moved him to prevent his re-election because he was close to Lutfur.
We were determined to prove them wrong, not least because we knew why Michael had lost. He failed to listen to local residents about their concerns. Alibor and Rabina listened to local residents concerns. They quickly discovered that people were dissatisfied with Respect because although they listened, they didn’t do anything to solve their problems.For example local people had objected to planning consent being given to a fast food takeaway. We got counjcillors to change their minds. Our answer has always been ‘Delivery, delivery, delivery’. That is to say local councillors are judged not by their promises but by what they achieve for local residents over the course of four years. At the end the residents have the chance to chuck them out if they do not deliver.
During the campaign and since we have had that in the forefront of our minds. The arguments about Lutfur Rahman have not distracted me or any other member of my branch from that central purpose. So that although Alibor and Rabina are no longer Labour Party members, they are still councillors for our ward and we expect them to continue to listen and work with local residents. That is why we have worked with them in the campaign to Save King Edward Memorial Park.
My view is that I would like them back in the party. As a loyal party member I have told both of them that I disagree with their decision to support an independent candidate in Spitalfields as I don’t think it will help the ongoing campaign to get them back into the party.
After Bradford the Labour party is now rethinking what it does. Galloway’s ability to mobilise large setions of the asian community has made people pause and think. Some people. Lex included, do not want to think or to learn. He seems to think that Lutfur Rahman is a Bengali Oswald Mosely! Simply denouncing him and calling people names ‘left wing fascist’ ‘Revolutionary Leninist’ or whatever fails because you are not talking and listening to the people who matter – the voters!