• Home
  • About
  • Comments policy
  • Contact
  • My fans

Trial by Jeory

Watching the world of east London politics

Feeds:
Posts
Comments
« The McDonald’s Mayor: Lutfur’s cab fares in Tower Hamlets
Cllr Rabina Khan’s £120 cab for a 1.5 mile trip to the park (bus fare £1.35) »

Tower Hamlets: Deputy Mayor’s £140 cab ride to Unison HQ

February 27, 2013 by trialbyjeory

Following on from Lutfur’s cab claims, next up are the taxi fares Deputy Mayor Cllr Ohid Ahmed billed to the taxpayer in 2011 and until June 2012, just to make his life a little easier.

His annual allowance for his role is £25,000, and he lives in Oban Street, Poplar, which is about a 10-minute walk to the Jubilee Line at Canning Town station and a 12-minute walk to East India DLR.

Yet he has twice billed us more than £100 for functions at the Houses of Parliament.

One was a return trip from the Town Hall in Mulberry Place on Feb 10, 2011, that cost £121. Now, it takes about 26 minutes by DLR and Tube to Westminster for a return fare of £4.20. And lo and behold, according to AA Route Planner, by car it takes…26 minutes! And, according to this online minicab quote, a return taxi fare would ordinarily cost £50. So this means, our supposedly cost-saving council is using an extortionate limo service, or our supposedly cost-saving deputy mayor has been keeping the meter running while he attends his very, very important meetings in Westminster.

His second trip to Parliament was on July 14, 2011, when he ordered a cab to collect him from his home and then return him to the Shadwell Centre for £122.

And I wonder what the barons at Unison feel about him charging taxpayers £140 for a return trip from Mulberry Place to their Euston Road HQ on Dec 14, 2011. Maybe, like millions of others who have no choice but to suffer it every day, Ohid just dislikes the Northern Line.

Date Fare Venue Comment
22.10.10 £17.17 Ocean Estate Photocall
13.12.10 £52.13 House of Commons  
15.12.10 £25.89 Cable Street  
10.2.11 £121.71 House of Commons Return to Mulberry
12.2.11 £106.43 Baden Powell House, SW7 Return to Oban St
22.3.11 £63.75 Brick Lane Return to Mulberry
28.3.11 £50.61 Bethnal Green Tech College Return to Oban St
28.3.11 £30.68 Bethnal Green Tech College Return to Oban St, seems
to have been charged twice – see above?
26.4.11 £59.44 Shadwell Childrens Centre Return to Mulberry
11.5.11 £52.90 Ocean Youth Centre Return to Mulberry
16.5.11 £86.14 London SOAS Return to Oban St (1-way,
Lutfur also went,returned separately, Lutfur’s total was £64.08)
14.7.11 £122.65 House of Lords/Shadwell
centre
Oban St to House of
Lords/House of Lords to Shadwell Centre
14.7.11 £3.30 Shadwell centre Return to Oban St
2.8.11 £51.69 Pudding Mill Lane DLR To and from Oban St
9.11.13 £22.18 Bethnal Green Police
Station
From Oban Street
6.9.11 £36.11 House of Commons From Oban St
9.11.11 £90.85 London Councils, London
Bridge
To and from Mulberry
11/1111 £59.45 City Hall To and from Oban st
12.11.11 £66.93 Mansion House To and from Oban St
14.12.11 £140.89 Unison Centre, Euston Road From Mulberry return to
Oban St
28.3.12 £68.44 Government Hospital From Mulberry return to
Stepney Green
18.4.12 £33.97 Royal London Hospital  
17.5.12 £32.74 The Royal regency, Manor
Park
This seems to be a
function/wedding type venue
17.5.12 £56.34 O2 Centre Collected from the Royal
Regency
14.6.12 £29.74 The View, E3 Collected from Oban St,
returned (7pm) Chrisp St
       
TOTAL £1,482.13    

Share this: Facebook & Twitter

  • Share
  • Tweet

Like this:

Like Loading...

Posted in Uncategorized | 5 Comments

5 Responses

  1. on February 27, 2013 at 1:53 pm Tim

    I wondered how deep this particular rot went.

    My comments on the last thread seem particularly relevant: “As I’ve said before and will say again, it’s piggies in the trough, so deep you can just about see their tails. Odious, despicable, and when will it end?”

    Welcome to Tower Hamlets; third world politics on every level. Ballot-rigging, corrupt officials and precious little accountability.

    Tim.


  2. on February 27, 2013 at 2:20 pm raymond gipson

    Hi Ted. Keep them coming. The more that people know the better.


  3. on February 27, 2013 at 2:49 pm Hugh Barnard1

    Thanks Ted. Given the experience of my dealings with THH there’s actually profligacy and waste at every level. One othercomment, when I FOI Tower Hamlets Homes, I usually receive un-auditable/un-verifiable spreadsheets + spin [for example Mr Crompton claiming ‘great savings’ and then being unable to quantify them: http://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/wkconsulting_and_leasehold_servi#incoming-258693 and following] which ‘confirm’ whatever snake-oil is being peddled.

    So, it would be interesting to see photocopies of the signed receipts, take witness statements from the drivers and tie up the amounts with tax declarations. In other word, an actual audit of whatever’s been presented in the ‘spreadsheets’.


  4. on February 27, 2013 at 4:43 pm Jhno

    It might work out cheaper in the long run to rehouse some of these hardworking, competent, diligent elected officials.

    In my mind’s eye I have a vision of hoards of bengali voters re-electing these guys as they have only read about them in the bengali section of the “only good things happen in Tower Hamlets” East End Life or by watching supportive programs on the various bengali satellite channels. I hope I am being naive.

    I hope somehow we can avoid Tower Hamlets going further down this road of electing on racial lines. My worry is that folk are voted for candidates based on the colour of their skin or their surname. The voting on the basis of “he’s one of us” will lead to the ghettoisation of this borough


    • on February 27, 2013 at 11:03 pm Tim

      Jhno,

      Easy there. Such common sense will have you labelled a racist …

      Thankfully, not all races solely favour their own in such a blatent manner. It’s a privilege reserved for the certain few (who also claim the double-privilege of Political Correctness to protect them.) See my comments on third-world politics above.

      Tim.



Comments are closed.

  • Ebuzzing - Top Blogs - London
  • Enter your email address to subscribe to this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.

    Join 6,448 other subscribers
  • Latest Tweets

    • Also attended.Thought film was interesting,poetry reading by @slhesketh excellent (as was contribution from the cou… twitter.com/i/web/status/1… 5 days ago
    • This all seems great and does seem a beacon in theory but who in Newham actually knows about this?? Zero from our c… twitter.com/i/web/status/1… 2 weeks ago
    • No lessons learned from last time, it seems. No residential streets or pavements gritted in my part of Canning Town… twitter.com/i/web/status/1… 2 weeks ago
    Follow @tedjeory
  • Recent Comments

    taj on Election Day: an open thread 
    Curious Cat on Election Day: an open thread 
    Jay Kay on Election Day: an open thread 
    Curious Cat on Election Day: an open thread 
    Cllr Andrew Wood, Ca… on Election Day: an open thread 
    Abdul Hai on Election Day: an open thread 
    Stewart Rayment on Election Day: an open thread 
    Stewart Rayment on Election Day: an open thread 
  • Archives

  • February 2013
    M T W T F S S
     123
    45678910
    11121314151617
    18192021222324
    25262728  
    « Jan   Mar »
  • Blogroll

    • Blood and Property
    • Dave Hill's Guardian blog
    • David Osler
    • Designed for Life
    • Diamond Geezer
    • Ealing Rose
    • Emdad Rahman's Blog
    • Hackney Wick Blog
    • Harry's Place
    • Mayor Lutfur Rahman
    • Mile End Residents' Association
    • Richard Osley's blog
    • Spitalfields Life
    • The Bow Bell
    • The Londonist
    • Tower Hamlets – it's your money
    • Tower Hamlets Watch

Create a free website or blog at WordPress.com.

WPThemes.


  • Follow Following
    • Trial by Jeory
    • Join 752 other followers
    • Already have a WordPress.com account? Log in now.
    • Trial by Jeory
    • Customize
    • Follow Following
    • Sign up
    • Log in
    • Copy shortlink
    • Report this content
    • View post in Reader
    • Manage subscriptions
    • Collapse this bar
%d bloggers like this: