Oh dear. What should have been a straightforward farewell ceremony to the troops who had been stationed at Tobacco Dock in Wapping for the Olympics has turned into sour political row.
Mayor Lutfur Rahman, alongside Dame Helen Mirren, was given the honour of inspecting the military on Sunday in Wapping Rose Gardens.
Here they all are together.
Thanks to Wapping-based Baynes Media, we have a video of the event in which Lutfur’s young political adviser Axel Landin can be seen trying to scare the hell out of the soldiers by jumping up and down behind them with a camera at 1minute or so in.
After making a gracious speech thanking the Armed Forces for their efforts and then inviting them all to eat a curry that someone in Brick Lane had laid on for them all (who, I wonder..), Lutfur retired home, rested overnight and wrote an account about his experience for his blog on Monday. The full blog post is here.
Again, the bulk of it strikes the right tone, but then this:
There was unfortunately one sour note. As this was a civic occasion for all of our borough, I naturally invited the leaders of the other groups on Council, Joshua Peck (Labour Group) and Peter Golds (Conservative Group) to join me at the event in paying tribute to the efforts of our servicemen. They did not turn up.
I very much regret that our opposition leaders chose to absent themselves from this very moving ceremony. I sincerely hope that their discourtesy to our armed services, and indeed to our borough, will not prevent them from supporting the Covenant our borough has announced to ensure fair treatment for returning veterans.
Well, this is pretty rum. Someone I know who is an officer in one of the regiments who served at the Olympic Park believes these comments to be disrespectful to the soldiers. A gracious farewell event should be apolitical. Trying to make political capital out of this is fairly low grade.
Josh Peck tells me the invite to the event was only sent ou by Communications head Takki Sulaiman at 6pm on Friday, and even then only as a round-robin to all councillors. He says he had a long-standing family commitment that he just could not alter. I’m sure our soldiers, of all people, would appreciate the importance of family events.
Peter Golds, who has an OBE and from what I have seen takes more pride in such civic duties than most, has gone further. He was unable to attend because every Sunday he travels to look after his severely disabled brother. Again, I’m sure the troops, more than most, would understand the value of this.
Peter said:
It is a slur to suggest that Iwould show anything but utmost respect to our armed forces and had I been given notice about this event I would have attended. In fact notice was sent out at 18.14 on Friday evening. I have written to [Royal Navy Regional Commander] Commodore Atherton and also to Lutfur Rahman requesting that his blog be amended. I have also asked questions as to the timing of the arrangements via members enquiry and freedom of information.
This is his letter to Commodore Atherton:
Dear Commodore Atherton
On behalf of my group colleagues and local residents I am writing to express our thanks for the work that our service personnel put into the Olympics. Always cheerful, never failing to respond to requests for directions they were a credit to our city and country.
As reported in the East London Advertiser, your reception at the parade in Wapping on Sunday showed how much locals appreciated the work put in by our Forces.
I would like to apologise personally for not being present to pay my personal thanks. Sadly, Tower Hamlets Council notified members late on Friday afternoon and like many council colleagues I did not see the email until too late.
I know from residents who did attend, that you were given a rousing reception and I hope that this short letter adds to the cheers.
And this is the letter to Lutfur:
Dear Mr Rahman
Re: Your “Blog” – Thanking our armed forces for their Olympics Service
I have today written to Commodore Martin Atherton regarding the Parade on Sunday in light of your blog, which is accessed via the Council website and therefore can be construed as official and certainly more than the ramblings of a politician.
The blog makes an untrue and dishonest statement regarding me which I quote directly:
“I very much regret that our opposition leaders chose to absent themselves from this very moving ceremony. I sincerely hope that their discourtesy to our armed services, and indeed to our borough, will not prevent them from supporting the Covenant our borough has announced to ensure fair treatment for returning veterans”.
Notification of this event was sent to me by your Head of Communications at 18.14 on Friday 10th August using my normal council email address. I did not open this until late on Saturday – far too late to make arrangements to attend.
It stands to reason that arrangements for this would have taken some time and therefore members could have been given an indication of the time and venue before all details were finalised. I find it difficult to accept that the very late notification was anything other than intentional.
I will be raising questions with regard to this blog but expect that you will alter this untrue story and provide me with a right of reply in case anyone should be misled.
Unfortunately, Lutfur does not allow comments on his blog. If he did, I’m sure someone would have raised another civic occasion at which respects are paid to the military when another senior member of the council failed to show turn up…one which is marked in the calendar every year…
Remember the Remembrance Sunday Service in November 2010? Yes, the missing man on that occasion was a certain Mayor Rahman. His surprise absence apparently even baffled then council chief executive Kevan Collins. He warned no one he would be missing, I’m told.
Perhaps he was just out for revenge when he wrote his blog. Very silly, very student politics. He can do better than that.
Trial by Jeory 
To say that The Mayor has lost the plot is beg the question what was the plot in the first place. Along with the shambles of the refusal to allow MPs one a Minister from a fellow Commonwealth country, his own, and there seeming to be someone letting off the fire alarm at the Town Hall to alow the building to be cleared, he has now totally shot himself in the foot.
This man is not only incompetent he is stupid. He has to go.
“Perhaps he was just out for revenge when he wrote his blog. Very silly, very student politics. He can do better than that”.
Student being the operative word, he doesn’t write his blog Axel Landin writes it. It’s nice to see trotskyite Axel a ‘Labour party member’ from Camden back in Tower Hamlets working for somebody who campaigns against the Labour party and featured heavily in Respect and ‘Independent’ election material. He has a promising career in front of him, I hope nobody from regional office sees this video with him bobbing up and down like a jack in the box, he may find he goes the way of the last lot if they do.
It wouldn’t be the first time the Mayors played politics with these sorts of things his face is plastered all over the borough promoting our Olympic status. Considering he tried to rent out the war memorial gardens for a bankers boozeup i’m not sure how much respect he has for our military.
Where does this Axel Landin come from? How did the Mayor get hold of him? And what is the evidence that he is a Trotskist? I,m not for one moment saying he isn’t and it,s possible he was inherited from Livingstone who had many highly paid Trots in his entourage.
“Where does this Axel Landin come from?”
I’ve asked myself that on many occasions, he comes across as if he’s from another planet but maybe that’s just the Cambridge in him. He’s a Labour party member from Camden. He was one of Ken’s ‘brains’ during the internal Mayoral selection process which reveled in manufacturing lies about Oona King.
His opinions about Tower hamlets aside: we need to unite the party etc etc he’s a pretty decent guy. Always very polite. He wrote an excellent boundary review document for Rahman which was much better than the tripe Labour group came up with, the fact that a student can cobble together a better submission than Labour group ought to worry councillors. Presumably he’s back working with the mayor on round two, not that there’s any conflict of interest in a Labour party member working on a submission aimed at losing Labour council seats.
“How did the Mayor get hold of him? And what is the evidence that he is a Trotskist?”
Through Ken, do you need any more evidence than that? He’s more a trotskist in training. Run his name through google or better still add him on facebook and read his wall.
Mayor Rahman / Axel ? : “I sincerely hope that their discourtesy to our armed services, and indeed to our borough, will not prevent them from supporting the Covenant our borough has announced to ensure fair treatment for returning veterans”.
Have i missed something here? Is Mayor Rahman in favour giving returning soldiers preferential treatment like Wandsworth Council ? http://www.wandsworth.gov.uk/news/article/11187/ex-soldiers_given_council_homes A very good policy if he is, and if he isn’t they ought to look at it .
Axel did the social media for Ken in the Labour mayoral selection process.
So he is a bit of a loser then? Ken’s social media campaign was a fiasco from start to finish.
So it looks like he was one of Ken’s kitchen cabinet in waiting in Tower Hamlets for The Prince Over The Water who was so terribly let down by the electorate of London. He seems to be very juvenile, member of The Youth Parliament, whatever that is, and is involved in Cambridge University politics. Looks like so many people around the Labour Party nowadays who have never had a proper job in their lives.
Question: Where are the Wapping ward councillors? Why were they not there? Why did neither Peter Gold’s or Josh Peck refer to their councillors; Dr Emma Jones and Denise Jones?
If the party leaders couldn’t attend why didn’t they send a deputy?
Why was the Speaker not there either?
Oh please. Don’t you get it? The troops couldn’t care less who was there politically? They were v grateful for the event, that the public turned up and particularly because Helen Mirren was there. It was excellent that Lutfur was there but he should’ve left it at that.
It was ill-advised of him to make it political; I think it’s disrespectful to the military, childish and it demeans him. It perhaps also reveals his intentions behind the event.
In answer to your direct questions, i suppose we’ll all find out in good time when exactly his event was organised, who organised it and when exactly everyone was made aware of it. I know i had no idea it was on.
It seems to me that most councillors were told on Friday evening. They have lives, they have plans. It really isn’t a big deal. Exploiting it is.
Many of our councillors have lives outside of politics. Denise owns and manages a successful bookshop in Bricklane and Dr Emma Jones’s is a senior researcher at Kings College. I think it unlikely that either of them could easily rearrange their schedules at such ridiculous notice, the same could be said of most other councillors with real Jobs.
Nobody expects you to criticise Mayor Rahman Stuart, especially with selections coming up.
The extremely misnamed Stuartmadewell is of course himself a leading Trotskyist having been in and out of every group going the one similarity of them all being is that they could hold their AGM in a phone box.
I wouldn’t bet on the boundary stuff being Axel’s own work if it is agood as you say it is. He doesn’t seem to bright.
I have been thinking about Stuart Madewll and it is perhaps no coincidence that as one of Tower Hamlets leading Trotskyists he is also a supporter of The Mayor. One of the things that he and his ilk always do is to confuse any issue by asking totally irrelevant questions instead of dealing with the issue at hand.
I’ll make it easy for you Stuart. The news of the event was sent out so late on Friday that it was almost certain that the councillors that Rahman didn’t want there wouldn’t have seen the emails until too late.
It was intentional Stuart rather like the Trot tactics of moving meetings at the last minute, not telling the opposition, passing a resolution and then accusing the opposition of boycotting the meeting. You would of course know about these tactics having used them a few times yourself over the years.
You should show him more respect madmullah. Stuart is a long standing member of Tower Hamlets Labour party. He’s on the parties working group for the local boundary review and is part of the new THLP Cheka which is investigating poor Dan McCurry for comments he made on this blog. I won’t be able to make that meeting but I hope somebody provides Ted with the information/ or we get a guest post.
I didn,t know he was in the Labour Party. I thought Kinnock got rid of all the Trots years ago.
THLP have a “working group” for the local boundary review… that will be fair and impartial then. How about ward boundaries being fair, based on historical precedence and representative of real (rather than contrived) communities? Radical idea I know.
Re: Axel Landin – here’s the thing.
Whether or not he writes the blog is not important. From the content of posts, the frequency of them and the structure/style (at least of some posts) it is clear that they are not the work of the Mayor. Nothing unusual in that – lots of people who need to communicate publicly but don’t have time to do it exclusively pay people to draft material for them.
However, the golden rule (and the key point of this post) is that if you are drafting anything to go out in somebody’s name it is usual (if not essential) to run it past that person for approval first.
I’ve written many things over the years on behalf of people (including senior individuals in central or local government) or organisations and I have never been able to send stuff out without approval from the person concerned (or the highest representative of an organisation.)
So, regardless of whether the sentiments expressed were Axel’s or not we are faced with a choice of what to believe: either the Mayor gave approval to the piece (in which case he gave approval to those specific lines and they can be taken to represent his views) or he is careless enough to allow somebody else to be constantly putting out lines which are attributable to him without his knowledge or approval (with all the chance of that landing him in very hot water).
Which is the more dangerous/ill-advised option?
Well I think it is important. Considering the Mayor is always championing local youth why couldn’t he find a Tower Hamlets student to write his blog? I dare say Axel could do without the experience, why bus in a Cambridge student from Camden to write it when there are plenty of bright kids in Tower Hamlets that would love the opportunity to get involve in local politics?
I doubt Mayor Rahman or members of his team checked the blog before it went out. I think they’re dazzled by his accent and just let him get on with it.
Unfortunately I have never had the opportunity to co-ordinate the deployments of members of the Armed Services!
The last day of the Olympics, local people have got to know the troops at Tobacco Dock.
Local people got to know about the Sunday parade through the local network. Then news of a civic reception is known on the Friday before. You would have thought someone would have said ‘we ought to be there’.
But sadly they weren’t. I don’t think it was a conscious boycott. I think they were either too busy or otherwise unaware of what was going on in their own ward.
And a big Eid Mubarack to all my many critics
Once again Trotskyist obfuscation comes to the fore. Stuart, I will go through this again so do try and stop re-reading Isaac Deutcher and pay attention lad.
The parade was obviously planned for some time. The British Armed Forces have a habit of doing that in case you hadn’t noticed. They would have informed the council well before so Lutfur Rahman’s office would have known.
It is blatantly obvious, except to people like yourself, that there was an attempt by said office to prevent opposition politicians from attending by not sending emails to their council mailboxes until the very last moment.
All that was required was the email to be sent out a day earlier or when the council was informed of the event. What we should now be told is when was the first time the council were given a definite date and time of the event. It is inconceivable that they were informed the same day, the Armed Forces simply do not operate like that.
The situation we are faced with is either sabotage or SNAFU. I rather think the former, the latter is Situation Normal, All F****D Up, a well known British Army expression which you are probably not aware of.
If the invitation was given in good time there has to be some disciplining of the staff involved so a Freedom of Information request goes in today.
The second issue here is the make up of the panel that is making recommendations on boundary changes in the borough. It seems from today’s Advertiser that Labour and Tories are both unhappy, as well they might be, with the process. If Axel and Stuart are on the panel then there is a good chance of either sabotage or SNAFU.
I thought it was police jargon for “Sub-Normal And F****ing Useless” – a reference to SWP target voters.